The Doctor and the Magnate
by officeladyhikaru
Summary: After battling an eating disorder, Kaoru is determined to be a doctor, and to cheat the system so he can be with Hikaru in the one way that matters. But how much of himself will he lose in the process? Yaoi HxK, WARNING: suicide(s) of minor character(s).
1. The Dark Horse

_This story ties in loosely to my camp NaNoWriMo effort, "Brother, Lover, Doctor, Friend," also found in my profile. While this fanfic can be read independently, here's a brief summary of BrLoDrFr in case anyone's interested._

Kaoru developed an eating disorder as a means of dealing with his uncertainty about Hikaru's level of commitment, and the viability of their relationship long-term. When things got out of control, the twins' mother sent Kaoru to a clinic in the United States, where he would have been able to get better care than in Japan, where eating disorders receive less recognition. Hikaru faked an eating disorder and ended up going with him. Once there, a series of events pushed the twins to confront their demons and to be more up front about their feelings. As their relationship grew stronger, Kaoru was able to take the first steps toward recovery, and the twins devised a plan to cheat the system and become a real married couple. (The specifics of the plan will we revisited in later chapters, so I will not detail them here). In addition, the twins got to know their fellow patients at the clinic very well, and Kaoru discovered that he drew strength from helping others out of mental health crises. He ended up deciding to go to medical school so he could continue doing what he loved, and to someday start Japan's first eating disorder clinic.

...

AGE: 16, Fall of 2nd year in Highschool

Part 1: The Dark Horse

"Hitachiin? Kaoru Hitachiin? Who the heck is THAT?"

The question was, of course, rhetorical. By second year of high school, all the students at Ouran Academy knew everyone in their class almost too well, as many of them had been together since kindergarten. And yet, all the students had to do was pass exams to be guaranteed a place at Ouran University, and many had jobs at family companies waiting for them upon graduation. As a result, those who consistently ended up at the top of the class did so largely for personal reasons, were only a handful, and were well-known to everybody. In light of these circumstances, the Big Five - as this handful of students had come to be known - were staring with varying degrees of consternation at the bulletin board that listed the latest class rankings, most notably at the new name that had intercalated itself among theirs.

"He's one of those redheaded twins; their mother owns a luxury fashion brand," said Yuka Tayama, who never seemed to get any questions wrong on math tests. She was the only known girl in the Big Five if one didn't count Haruhi, who was universally recognized as a boy.

"I know who he IS," retorted Okamura, the boy who had been the first to express his dismay. "My question is why is his name up there?"

"Wait, which one is he again?" asked Marimoto, a boy whose every feature seemed to be as rotund and placid as that of a sitting Buddha. His family owned Japan airlines, and he was first in physics, though Kaoru had ended up right on his heels in second place.

"Does it matter?" Okamura shot back testily, "Fujioka, aren't you in that club with them? Do YOU know anything about this?"

"No, I don't, and I think you're overreacting," said Haruhi with a slight eyeroll. She was the only member of the group who had remained unshaken by Kaoru's move in the rankings – she knew the truth, but the twins had sworn her to secrecy. "For all we know it might be a fluke."

Okamura cast a doubtful look at her and chewed the insides of his cheeks.

"Ending up in the top five in one or two subjects is a fluke," he said. "Ending up in the top five in every subject and unseating ME in biology, overtaking you in social studies, and being right on Marimoto's tail in physics means something's up."

"And look, his brother's broken the top ten in seven out of eight subjects," said Kazukiyo Soga, who served as the Class Representative in student council. "That's never happened before."

"So?" Haruhi countered, clearly less than bothered by her alleged dethronement, "They might've had extra tutoring over the summer or something."

"Yes, but why would they?" Okamura insisted, "You don't need good grades to sew buttons in your mother's atelier…"

"Yeah, if I remember correctly they used to always play video games under the desks and never said a word in class," added Class Representative.

"People change," parried Haruhi. "Just because you're mad that there's new competition in town doesn't mean there's any reason to cry foul…"

"I'm not mad-"

"Guys!" - Yuka raised her voice over the clamor - "I think you're making too much of this. Why don't we just congratulate him and invite him to hang out with us?"

"Well, if by that you mean keep your friends close and your enemies closer…"

"No, Okamura, that's NOT what I meant. I just thought the twins have become much nicer since middle school, and I'm sure Kaoru will make a wonderful addition to our group."

"Yeah, maybe he'll have a thing or two to teach us if he's made such an impressive turnaround," said Marimoto, "Although we'll need to figure out which one he is first!"

"Fujioka can help with that, I'm sure." Class Representative smiled.

Okamura's skepticism was quickly overruled in a chorus of affirmation at the idea of welcoming the new kid on the block. But even as he fell silent he could not help thinking that extra tutoring was not all it took to make such a jump so quickly. After all, the twins had always been very much middle of the pack, with Kaoru hovering near the top fourth on good days. In fact, the Hitachiins were the infuriating sorts of pretty boys who seemed to skate through life on fine eyes and witty tongues, enjoying all it had to offer to the fullest. Of course, of COURSE, their nightly study sessions could never have been more than last-minute, mad dashes to the finish.

No, what Kaoru had accomplished required a total change in mindset, and motivation enough to break an iron rod over the knee. And although he spent much of his time around then, motivated people frightened Okamura. They frightened him far more than he was ready to admit. And at the end of the day, it simply wasn't fair. To the best of Okamura's knowledge, everyone in the Big Five was at the head of the class because they were either compensating for something, or felt they had something to prove. Fujioka was a commoner on scholarship. Marimoto was third in line to inherit Japan Air despite his fanatic obsession with his family's business. Class Representative was afraid of everything (failure included). And Yuka seemed determined to break every glass ceiling in the exact sciences - which made sense to Okamura: she had never been popular with the boys, and she came from a family that boasted two Nobel laureates, both men. But the twins had everything: half the girls in the school were in love with them, their futures were assured, they were well-adjusted, and if they had ever been outsiders, it was by their own choosing. What more could they want out of life - and wouldn't academic success in light of all that be almost too much honor for one person? The only thing Okamura could think of was that Kaoru was the second son - the first syllable of Hikaru's name was the same as his last name, something traditionally reserved for the first offspring. Perhaps Kaoru had grown tired of being second and decided to distinguish himself somehow from his brother. Perhaps the twins had decided to compete between themselves, hence Hikaru's improvement as well. And yet, why on earth would they pick school of all things? Why did they have to tread on his territory when they already had so much of their own? Why did they have to threaten to take away the only thing that had ever set him apart?

…

"Kaoru, come to be-e-ed!"

Hikaru was sprawled over the covers and could feel his eyes shutting almost on their own accord as he demolished the last of the monsters in his handheld computer game - something he did every night to unwind from the day's ups and downs.

Kaoru looked up from his fortress of books and smiled, a little apologetically, over his shoulder.

"Hikaru, we've talked about this."

"Oh, come on, Mr. Dark Horse for Valedictorian" - Hikaru made a show of moaning with a chuckle - "Surely you can relax for one night and celebrate your success by falling asleep in your brother-slash-boyfriend's arms." It was after midnight, and the twins had had a steamy, soapy mutual jerkoff session in the shower, but when it was over Kaoru had gone right back to studying again, and was seated over his books in a bathrobe and with wet hair, the light from his desklamp the only one in the room.

"You've hit the nail right on the head, Hikaru," Kaoru laughed, taking up his pen again and turning back to his notes - a meticulous, color-coded grid complete with drawings and diagrams of the younger twin's own making. "It's because I'm the dark horse that I can't relax. After all those years of doing just enough to get by, I've got a lot of work to do in the near future if I want to stay on top and have a shot at med school."

Hikaru decided not to argue, and gathered up what was left of his strength to get up, walk over to where his brother was seated, and hug him from behind around the shoulders.

"Okay, Mr. Not-tonight-Josephine." He kissed the hair just above Kaoru's ear. "But just so you know: I love you, I'm very, very proud of you, and I never cease to be amazed by you. You're going to eat them alive."

Kaoru turned around and met Hikaru's eyes, and before a moment passed their lips met as well. As Kaoru moaned softly into the kiss Hikaru felt warm all over - between his legs included - even though his body was running on empty in every respect.

"Wake me up and kiss me when you come to bed, alright?" said Hikaru as they broke the kiss and the older brother brushed noses with the younger, contented smiles on both their lips.

"Okay, Hikaru. Fifteen minutes."

"Right," Hikaru rubbed his twin's shoulders before turning on his heel and heading back to the bed with a laugh. "See you at 4 a.m."

He settled under the covers, bunching them up to create a poor substitute for Kaoru's body next to his. Before they had determined that it was time for them both to start thinking about their futures, the brothers had spent nearly every waking moment together. But now that Kaoru had his sights set on medical school as a result of that summer's events, he seemed to have four hours of cram school or tutoring every day, and would dash off the moment Host Club was over. When he got home, he would excuse himself from supper as soon as it was humanly possible, and studied long after Hikaru could no longer keep his eyes open. Kaoru studied during lunchtime, too, and during breaks between classes, and even in the car as their driver conducted them to and from school. In fact, Kaoru studied so much he would fall asleep during class, and Hikaru had to poke him awake.

The older twin missed his brother, no question, but then again - it was not about him anymore. He was more than ready to support Kaoru in his new ambition, studying by his side and attending to his own needs like a good boyfriend when Kaoru was too swamped. But he could not help thinking - could Kaoru possibly have been… HAPPY? Could he possibly still think it was all worth it? It was not an easy adjustment to make - to go from Beautiful Boy With Too Much Time On His Hands to Serious Student. And there were those glimmers of sadness and anxiety that surfaced in Kaoru's eyes when he thought Hikaru wasn't looking. It broke the older twin's heart whenever he noticed. After all, what more could he do than make tea and offer lots of loving words, hugs, and backrubs?

Nonetheless, he couldn't help but admire Kaoru's tenacity, as he had also begun to study more so he could be around his brother. Once he did, it didn't take long for Hikaru to realize that it took no ordinary amount of motivation to go over and over things that were mind-numbingly boring, seemed to have nothing to do with anything, and refused to make sense until you wanted to scream and tear your hair out. The good news was, even when Kaoru wasn't saying a thing, and the only sounds punctuating the silence were the rustle of pages and the clicking of pens as he switched colors for the purposes of his notes, Hikaru did not feel lonely in his brother's company.

That said, of course, Hikaru also made good use of the time he was alone, poring over everything from design mock-ups to inventory spreadsheets with Yuzuha, and accompanying her when she held conference calls and meetings. She seemed to conduct business around the clock, so it was easy to fit into his schedule. Yuzuha's staff also seemed to like teaching him things, and everyone seemed happy to see that he wanted to learn the ins and outs of the company even though he was so young. At times, it was almost fun, especially when things came together and a finished product was hewn out of what felt like chaos. And he was certainly developing a new respect for his mother as he came to appreciate just how many strings she had to keep in her head. But much of the time his biggest efforts went into concealing the fact that he was terribly confused, overwhelmed, and furiously writing things down to look up or ask about in a safer setting. He didn't tell Kaoru - he didn't want to worry him. At least not yet, while Kaoru was getting used to his new lifestyle, and still considered himself to be playing catchup to the Big Five.

In fact - the Big Five. That was yet another thing to concerned about. At the end of the day, he could handle the fact that he and Kaoru did not spend as much time together anymore, as it made the time they did share all the more precious. He still enjoyed sitting next to a taciturn Kaoru wrapped up in his own world far more than he enjoyed doing anything by himself, and even discussing boring things like molecular structures or Riemann sums was not quote so dull if he was discussing them with Kaoru. But the day the results for the semester had come out, the Big Five had approached the twins and made it very clear that they wanted to talk to KAORU Hitachiin.

"Alright, so which one's Kaoru?" the twins had asked in unison, as was their custom. Hikaru had propped his chin on his hand with his best air of nonchalance, and Kaoru had quickly scanned the desk they shared for anything that might have been labeled with their names and would have given the game away. "Haruhi, don't help them."

"Okay, I won't," said Haruhi with her usual blend of bemusement and mild annoyance at what she had come to consider petty posturing on the twins' part.

"Well, Kaoru's the one who scored better on exams," said Yuka Tayama with a frank smile that suggested she found the question trivial. "Kaoru's the one who isn't Hikaru."

"And Kaoru's the second son," added the rotund Marimoto.

"Right, but WHICH ONE?" said Hikaru with a smile, softening his speech as he cast his eyes over all five representatives of the academic elite. "Point to him."

"And explain why you think so," added Kaoru, purposefully lowering the timbre of his voice half an octave just as Yuka opened her mouth.

"Yeah, don't just guess. That's too easy."

The honor students looked uncertainly at each other and then back at the twins. Marimoto mumbled something nobody could hear.

"Look," Class Representative spoke up, "I admit we have no excuse not to know which one of you is which after being in the same class with you for ten years…"

"Yeah, I'd say," Hikaru said, "Haruhi figured it out after a few weeks…"

"Hmm, I wonder" - Kaoru giggled - "How many honor students does it take… Besides Haruhi, of course - Haruhi's special."

Class Representative waited patiently for them to finish laughing.

"Well, we just wanted to congratulate Kaoru on his achievements," he said. "We're very impressed, and if Kaoru is ever in need of a study-buddy, he has a friend in any and all of us. And we're impressed with Hikaru too" - he added hastily. "Top ten is no small feat. Keep up the good work."

"Thank you!" the twins replied, their dimples mirror images, and Hikaru prayed that the chorus would conceal the twinge of pain in his voice. It seemed the honor students had a plan after all: by emphasizing that it was KAORU they wanted, they seemed to be trying to gauge which twin would be sadder or more offended in hopes of differentiating between them.

"And I'm sure Kaoru would be more than happy to accept your invitation" - Hikaru smiled emphatically at Representative - "But first you really must tell us which one he is."

"Yeah," said Kaoru, "It seems Kaoru's met the criteria to be in your club, but we've got our own criteria. Tit for tat, it's only fair."

"We'll give you two weeks. That's less than the time it took Haruhi, but there are four of you."

It seemed that they had bought themselves time, as the Big Five acquiesced to the conditions, but Hikaru was still worried. Now that Kaoru was a top student, would it mean that he would start making new friends and studying with new people, and their time together would be cut even shorter? Studying with another strong student was beneficial - he knew that much from his own experience. Kaoru's example right smack in front of his eyes always kept him on task. But would the honor students want to study with HIM, a lowly top-tenner? Indeed, they'd been quite emphatic in congratulating and inviting Kaoru, and Hikaru had been at best an afterthought.

And what if Kaoru really would want to study with someone who would pull him up and offer wisdom he didn't have, instead of stopping every two minutes to ask, "Wait, what? Can we backtrack a second?" Hikaru could, of course, solve the problem by gunning for the top five as well, but even if he worked as hard as Kaoru it was hard to imagine that he had what it took, and he didn't want to enter into direct competition with his brother. In fact, what if the Big Five had seen that they had both moved up in class rank and were trying to sabotage whatever synergy they might've thought was responsible? Heck, they'd certainly sabotage HIM if they took Kaoru away - far more than just academically.


	2. Shredded

AGE: 16, Fall of 2nd year in Highschool

Part 2: Shredded

Kaoru looked up from the page he had been skimming and blinked a few times, rolling his shoulders to keep them from growing stiff. The twins had a free period, and it was half-over. Soon the last bell of the day would ring, and they would head off to get ready for the Host Club. As had become their custom that fall, they had eschewed making the rounds of their friends to catch up on the latest gossip, or racing around the school grounds in the crisp autumn air. Instead, they settled in the library reading room - a large, airy hall with vaulted ceilings, tables of dark oak, and shelves upon shelves of leather-bound volumes reaching far out of sight. Hikaru had always felt a little out of place there, but now that he and Kaoru were well on their way to establishing themselves as serious students, he almost felt like he belonged, and the long rows of green secretary's lamps on the tables made him feel very collegiate.

As Kaoru embarked on his journey to medical school, Hikaru had become his biggest cheerleader. In fact, Hikaru was so impressed with him that the younger twin found it mildly annoying. For several years, Kaoru had suffered from bulimia, and having spent some time in a Hawaiian eating disorder clinic, he had decided he wanted to help others who suffered. In fact, being there for those who were in pain - and digging for pain - had quickly become something that soothed him and made his life feel worthwhile. But making that decision was one thing, and - Devil take it - what it actually took to become a doctor was quite another. In fact, many of the hoops he would have to jump through involved little to no healing, or empathy, or human connection of any sort. Just numbers, and facts, and mechanisms that resembled complicated tinkertoy constructions. It made sense, of course: helping those who were in pain was a great honor and a great responsibility. There was a lot to learn from the ground up before you could count yourself competent, and it only made sense that there would be many tests. Like in a martial art, many of them probably existed simply for the sake of developing the requisite strength of character.

But that did little to help Kaoru in coming to terms the fact that half the time he felt like an idiot. He had done well on the last set of exams, yes - but it felt like he'd had to work five times as hard as everyone else. There were definite gaps in his knowledge from prior years, when he had "learned" things for a test only to delete them from his memory because he never thought he'd use them. Now, those unfortunate decisions made everything take twice as long, as he had to stop every few minutes to forage in reference books and on the internet for additional explanations. In fact, he felt so bad about how painfully obvious it was that he was late to the go-getter party that he never asked any questions in cram school, always preferring to talk to his teachers privately or by email. Long story short - he wished he could tell his brother that just because he sat over his books until the seat of his pants threatened to disintegrate did not mean that he was "amazing" in any way. Just the opposite, in fact.

But Hikaru had looked up from his books as well, and was smiling his sweet, puppy-dog smile, as if to tell him for the umpteenth time how wonderful he was. Kaoru could not bear to shatter the illusion.

"Coffee?" the older twin said, his eyes catching a cool ray of sunshine that escaped from the clouds outside the window.

"Oh, God, yes." The younger twin had paused in his reading, in fact, because the three late nights he'd had that week were making themselves known: the lines on the page were starting to blur together, and he had been reading the same sentence over and over for the last minute. Thank goodness it was Friday - the next day, he'd get to sleep in for a whole hour, as cram school started at nine a.m. on Saturdays while regular school started at eight.

"Great, I was just thinking the same thing."

"Yeah. You'd take any excuse for a study break." Kaoru chuckled.

"Coffee's not a study break - coffee's what you need so studying doesn't break you." Hikaru got up and leaned in next to his brother as if to look at the diagrams he was perusing, planting a quick kiss on his cheek. "Though if you WANT a study break, that can certainly be arranged."

Kaoru's head spun a bit, and his stomach fluttered. Suddenly he felt very far away from his frustration with his brain for shutting down on him, and he had to catch his breath to keep himself from blurting out that a study break behind some particularly remote bookshelves would be just the thing to take the edge off. Over the past months, effective study habits were not the only thing the twins had developed. They'd also mastered the art of the quickie. Before, Kaoru had acquiesced to Hikaru's advances reluctantly, and only at bedtime. They had not been clear on where they stood and what it all meant, and the overly romantic thoughts that always followed the sessions made him want to hurt himself and vomit. But now that they were "official," Kaoru realized he quite liked getting naughty.

To that end, when they weren't studying, they were usually concealing the fact that they'd just jerked off together, or made out, or had been down each other's throats in quite another way. In fact, they'd done it nearly everywhere: in the Host Club changing room (which made for fireworks afterwards with the guests), in just about every boys' bathroom, in the locker room, and once in the back seat of the car with the divider up so that the driver couldn't see - although he probably heard everything. They even kept a private tally, just for a laugh, and Kaoru could not help but admit that it was definitely a better cure for anxiety than bulimia. The only thing was - he knew he had to limit their time together to established study breaks, rather than letting it become the reason to take a study break. Otherwise, they'd never get anything done.

"Get that coffee, and we'll see…" Kaoru allowed himself a small smirk as he used two fingers to lift his brother's hand off his shoulder to indicate that time was a-tickin'.

As he watched Hikaru walk away, glancing once or twice over his shoulder, Kaoru let his eyes drift shut. It was Friday, wasn't it? Surely it would be alright to take a five-minute cat-nap. In some circles, working so hard you fell asleep a your desk was even a badge of honor. And quite aside from that, part of true strength lay in knowing when you were too beat to continue.

…

In the weeks that followed the end of the first semester, Okamura had grown more and more obsessed with the twins. He had been disturbed by Kaoru's sudden appearance in the top five, but that was only the beginning. The fact that there were two of them - nearly indistinguishable and almost always speaking in unison - made the twins that much more frightening.

Plus, they always knew your name, but you never know theirs, giving them the upper hand in conversation. In fact… Who did they think they were, countering the Big Five's invitation with their own ultimatum, and making THEM, the honor students, feel stupid? The others seemed not to have paid it much mind, or approached it as a game, but Okamura had been stung. It simply wasn't fair. Just as before, the twins were riding - nay, power-tripping - on something they had had from birth: the fact that they WERE twins. They'd sat laughing at them, as if they had their own secret society, and that somehow put them above the rest. It reminded him, once again, how painfully ordinary he was in every respect, and how he had only ever gotten by on effort alone, like regular mortals.

If he could get Kaoru alone, he thought, he'd get a better chance at learning his secrets. If there was one of him, it would be far easier to knock him off his cloud. But the twins were never apart - literally never. They sat at adjacent desks, they walked everywhere side by side, they studied together during downtime, and they even went to the bathroom together. The teachers had never had to learn which one was which, because when one raised his hand, so did the other. It had become common practice for the lecturers to say, "Yes, Hitachiin brothers," and they answered in perfect unison. Okamura had tried to figure out which one was Kaoru by gauging which one seemed to know he what he was talking about when they conferred in whispers prior to volunteering an answer, but his seat was too far away and the method proved unreliable. Another potential clue was that one of the twins did seem to nod off in class on occasion, but was it fatigue or was it boredom? The other one always poked him awake, but was it loyalty or a sign of a type-A personality with no patience for slackers? Marimoto insisted that as the second son Kaoru HAD to have the higher timbre of voice, and HAD to be the second one to speak, but Okamura had told him to stop thinking in stereotypes. After all, the twins had insisted on their giving them a REASON, and who would observe a rule like "always speak second" outside of court ceremony? As for timbres of voice, that was even more unfounded, and testing that theory would require actually speaking to them - something Okamura was not ready to do.

The best he had come up with was to follow the twins whenever he could, trying to work up his courage. To that end, he had switched his schedule so he had the same free period them, and procured a pair of binoculars. That Friday afternoon in November, he sat holed up in the library a couple dozen feet away from them, at a table between two sets of shelves perpendicular to the wall. It was the perfect spot: it concealed him, but between the row of books and the shelf there was a convenient gap for spying.

He had just been thinking that if the twins were never apart he could observe them studying and glean something from their habits when he saw one of them get up and walk away, while the other…

Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. It was almost too perfect. Whether or not the one who remained was Kaoru, he suddenly saw a way to get his adversary back. Oh yes. He'd get him back and make him fall so hard he'd be hitting every snag on the way down. A once-over of the table a few minutes ago had given him the perfect target, and he felt blood rushing to his ears. He had five minutes give or take, depending on where the other twin had gone. The library was nearly deserted - it was Friday afternoon, after all. It was now or never.

Shaking, and barely able to feel his own legs, he got up, lifting his chair so it would not make any noise, and walked, rolling his feet to muffle the sound. Thankfully, the library had carpeted floors, but he was not taking any chances.

It was so easy. He picked up the notebook, a third of its pages covered in small, almost girlishly neat handwriting - taking care that the paper did not crinkle. The Hitachiin sighed and mumbled something in his sleep, but his eyes did not open. Okamura turned on his heel.

His mind was reeling, and for a few seconds he saw only the door, and how painfully slowly it was drawing near. His legs felt like lead, and he wondered if he'd ever get there.

And yet… There he was. Stepping into the hallway, he finally hazarded to glance down at what he had stolen, and for a moment felt a twinge of regret. The notes were truly excellent - they could have made an imbecile ace the test. And they were rainbow in color. He almost considered keeping them, but only for a moment. Then the anger surfaced again.

"Hey, what are you doing with those?"

Okamura looked up to find that the voice belonged to the other redheaded twin, who had appeared in front of him, double-fisted with two cups of coffee covered by traveler's lids.

"Your brother gave them to me," said Okamura quickly, shutting the notebook.

"My brother?" The Hitachiin looked skeptical. "What's his name?"

"Uh - Kaoru" - Okamura hazarded after a second. His eyes darted down to the cover, but the name was apparently written on the inside. Yet they must have been Kaoru's - they were too good not to be. And yet, was Kaoru indeed the sleeper? The notes had lain right smack in between the two brothers, and sleeping twin had been reading something else.

"I doubt he would've done that. They weren't his to give." The twin with the coffee countered with a smile that did not slip into his eyes. There was something suspicious about Okamura - Hikaru did not believe him, so he tried the first thing he could think of: to confuse him. It didn't seem likely that in the five minutes he had been gone Okamura would have made friends with Kaoru AND gotten him to share his notes - and even if he had, where was he taking them? There was a copy machine in the libra-

"OWW, FUCK!"

While Hikaru had predicted an unpleasant end to the conversation, he did not expect to get shoved quite so hard and quite so quickly, and to end up with scalding coffee all over his hands and sleeves despite lids he'd thought were tightly attached. As he dropped the cups with several more choice curse words, he saw Okamura disappearing down the hallway.

"Hey, come back here!"

He took off after the boy with the notes, and had almost caught up with him when the latter changed directions, darting into a service stairwell. Hikaru got there a second too late, and lost another second in checking if Okamura had gone up or down. The two ended up on another floor, and Okamura zigzagged yet again, turning a corner when Hikaru least expected it. When the twin caught up, the hallway was deserted, and then he heard the sound of a paper shredder.

He dashed in the direction of the sound, but it was too late. Okamura stood over the device, stationed next to a printer in the small computer lab, and his brother's notes were disappearing into the slot. Hikaru leaped across the room, pulled the plug, and the machine ground to a halt with an angry sputter - but it was too late. The pages were than half-consumed, and the surviving half was warped grotesquely as it stuck out of the blades.

"You…. BASTARD!"

Okamura looked up at him with a triumphant smile, though his hands were shaking.

Hikaru felt like dying. Like he'd been thrown into a deep, dark, Medieval cellar to rot without a trial. What would Kaoru say? What would he DO? If he had only gotten there a second sooner; if he hadn't insisted on getting that goddamn coffee…

"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA," the older Hitachiin all but roared, "HOW LONG THOSE TOOK TO MAKE?! YOU ASSHOLE!"

He crossed the distance between him and the kneeling Okamura, and grabbed him by the collar so hard the latter nearly choked. And yet, the brown-haired boy looked perfectly nonchalant - as if completely indifferent to his fate now that the deed was done.

"Well, that'll teach you to stick your hoity-toity designer label name where it don't belong." He gave Hikaru a thin, sealed smile. "I'd stick with nancing around in your little Host Club, pretty boy." Now that he felt he had the upper hand, he let his voice seethe with all the venom he had in him.

"You know I won't let this go, don't you?" Hikaru was still glaring. "There's no way you'll get away with this. I'll tell everyone."

"Oh, really?" Okamura laughed. "Well, gee, it's your word against mine. It's last period on Friday and the place is deserted. Who's to say you didn't shred your own notes and pin it on me to try and sabotage me?"

"Well, I do, for one" - they heard Kaoru's voice above them. "And that's my notebook, Okamura. I'm the one you're after."

"Kaoru-" Hikaru let go of Okamura's at the sight of his brother and looked down, feeling like the scum of the earth again. He did not dare raise his eyes. "I'm… So… Sorry… Kaoru… I couldn't…." His voice broke as the whorls of the hardwood floor grew blurry and he felt a stinging in his throat.

"That's okay, Hikaru." The younger twin knelt down and touched his hand. "It's not your fault."

"Yeah, well you two are like a married couple," Okamura retorted, dusting himself off as he got up. "Everyone knows you'll never testify against each other."

"Yeah, well, then there's also me." Haruhi stepped around the doorframe. "I saw Hikaru chasing you."

"And me too," said Class Representative, following suit, his shoulders hunched sheepishly. "I was in the library. I saw Kaoru wake up and freak out that his notebook was gone. But when Hikaru left he was empty-handed."

"Give it up already, Okamura," said Haruhi, throwing the boy a disdainful look. "We all know you had it in for Kaoru from the beginning."

…

"You know, I really ought to expel you," said the Dean of Students as she surveyed the group of second-years severely. "You should be ashamed of yourself, Okamura. Sabotaging another student like that - we don't stand for that at Ouran."

Okamura stared at the carpet with all the attitude of a beaten dog. Haruhi, the twins, and Class Representative flanked him on either side, the last looking a little apologetic and avoiding his friend's eyes.

"But your dad's on the board, so I'm going to suspend you for two weeks and tell him myself. You will not be able to make up missed assignments or exams."

Okamura's bottom lip quivered and his face spasmed against the tears. Class Representative caught his friend under the armpits just in time as he was about to sink to the floor.

"You should count yourself lucky," the Dean said, unimpressed by the show of emotion.

Hikaru and Haruhi looked over at Kaoru and saw that he was staring at the floor, his body language almost mirroring Okamura's.

"That's a harsh punishment," he said, "And I'm sure it'll teach Okamura a lesson, but it won't bring my study guide back. I should've made copies or something. Or made it on the computer."

"Nonsense, you shouldn't be expected to change the way you study because you're worried about security," said the Dean, her eyes sympathetic. Hikaru put a hesitant hand on his brother's shoulder.

"Yeah, and they were pretty kickass notes - I don't think you can DO some of that stuff on the computer very easily," Hikaru said, indignant. He had refrained from saying much because he could not face down the fact that he had failed Kaoru, no matter how much the latter insisted to the contrary. But Kaoru blaming HIMSELF was too much. "We were even planning to share them with whoever asked. Now nobody'll get to see them, no thanks to stinker-san over there."

"Don't worry," said Haruhi. "You can use my notes. And we'll help you."

"Yeah," added Representative, "You've already made your study guide, and that's a form of studying in itself. So you're farther along than you think."

Kaoru gave then both a thin, sealed smile. They were being kind, of course, but what they didn't know was that making study guides was a very personal process for him, and harder than anyone realized. In fact, it was a translator's work and a researcher's work rolled into one as he painstakingly grouped information in ways that made sense to him, and reframed things in his own words. Were he to use Haruhi's notes, he might have to do as much "translating" as he did the first time around. And the colors - he needed his colors - whereas Haruhi's notes were always monochrome.

The Dean reached for the "evidence" - the paper shredder, which stood on her desk. She took the functional part off the wastebasket and raised it up to examine the damage. The shredded halves of the pages hung in strips from the blades, which had been stopped midway in their progress. The strips, for the most part, still lay next to each other, the characters almost lining up just as they had when they were part of the same sheet. The cuts were corrugated, but nothing that a careful twice-over with coin couldn't smooth out. She then looked at the contraption from above, where the parts that had been spared were still attached.

"I may have an idea," she said after a few moments of examination. "Okamura, if you can take these notes out of the shredder and tape them together so they're still legible, I will cut your suspension in half. Hitachiins, you can have a two-day extension in studying for your next test regardless."

Representative was still holding Okamura by the elbows, and the latter sank further to the floor as his knees buckled.

"But… That's-" he all but croaked.

"The best deal you'll see for a while," said the Dean with a cool smile. "I'd take it if I were you, Mr. Okamura."

…

Okamura was stationed at a desk in the waiting area adjacent to the Dean's office, where he was to work on reconstructing Kaoru's notes with the aid of a roll of clear tape, a coin, and a screwdriver. No one was allowed to help him and the Dean's secretary was charged with staying late to oversee his work - but Kaoru hung back and so did Hikaru, having asked Haruhi to tell the Host Club to start without them. The twins took a seat on the waiting room couch at the other end of the room, and Hikaru kneaded his fingers wordlessly into his brother's shoulders. The younger twin stared dispassionately out the window. The gray afternoon light slanted through the trees, and the wind chased the leaves that had once adorned them down the paths of the quad.

"Hey, how're you feeling?" Hikaru whispered as he planted a hesitant kiss where his hand had been. He was coming to terms with the fact that he had failed to rescue the notes, but still worried about saying the wrong thing.

"Okay - uhh… thanks." Kaoru looked back at him and it was clear he wanted to smile, but could not. He would be alright - of course he would. It could have been worse: it could have been the end of the semester, and fifty pages of notes instead of fifteen, and then they might have been in real trouble. "Thanks for being there. Really," he added, catching his brother's eyes. "And don't blame yourself."

After half an hour of feeling like he'd been beaten and left for dead, and so sorry for himself it was difficult to breathe, Kaoru's helplessness was starting to dissolve. Perhaps it was Hikaru's hands on his back; perhaps it was something else, and he still felt dull inside, and empty, and far from hopeful. But suddenly it seemed like the pressure cooker he'd been living in had turned off, and all he could think - with vague detachment - was that life was long even if the days were short: that at least nobody was dead, and it would work out, somehow. The tightness that had seized up his shoulders again and again ever since the ordeal began was dissipating under Hikaru's hands.

"I'm just sorry you had to go through that." The older twin had taken up channeling his frustration at himself by working his fist harder into his brother's muscles. "All you're trying to do is some good in the world. It's not fair. You haven't done a thing to hurt anyone. What kind of a person would want to sabotage YOU?"

"You know, I was wondering the same thing. A happy person wouldn't do something like that." Kaoru paused as he watched the wind make small whirlpools of leaves around the legs of a bench far below. "Something's hurting him."

"I'd say!" replied Hikaru, rubbing vigorously on either side of Kaoru's spine as the latter arched his back. "He's just lucky *I* haven't gotten around to coming over there and hurting him."

Kaoru turned around quickly and put his hand on his brother's arm, suddenly looking marginally more alive.

"I'm gonna go over there," he whispered. "I want to talk to him. You stay here."

"Kaoru, NO! What do you want to talk to him for - he's an asshole!"

"There's nothing more he can do to me, Hikaru," the younger twin said. "I just want to see what he's all about, okay? Maybe get some answers."

Hikaru slumped back into the couch and looked at his brother with grudging amazement. They were very different after all, and this was only the latest in a long string of evidence. Were he in Kaoru's shoes, he might have destroyed everything and everyone in sight until vengeance was visited tenfold on those who were at fault. In fact, he had been repressing the urge to do just that for the last hour, lest the Dean suspend him as well. No one else knew just how much blood, sweat, and tears Kaoru had been pouring into his studies. But Kaoru seemed as serene as a Hindu cow, now that the pain of the _katakori_** was gone from his face. And he was actually wondering about the feelings of the one who'd done him wrong.

_(**a "cultural syndrome" unique to Japan, usually manifests itself as shoulder and upper back pain, commonly attributed to stress and overwork)_

"Alright, I'll be here if you need me," Hikaru said firmly.

Kaoru gave his brother a small, reassuring smile, and walked over to the secretary's desk, a few feet away from Okamura's.

"I just want to talk," the younger Hitachiin said to the secretary, gesturing at Okamura, who had just extracted the notebook from the shredder's jaws and was looking at the mauled pages with an attitude of utter despondency. "I won't help him. Those are my brother's notes" - he lied - "and I'm as invested in Okamura's punishment as anyone."

"Alright. I'll be watching," replied the secretary gravely, punching a set of holes in a stack of papers with a degree of extra violence for emphasis. She was a young girl, barely out of university, with chic glasses and a straightlaced haircut aimed to make her look more mature. She seemed a touch frustrated that Okamura's punishment had inadvertently extended to her as well. "Don't distract him too much, either."

"I won't." Kaoru gave her a soft smile and sat down opposite Okamura, who looked emphatically down when he caught sight of the twin's shadow.

"I'll have you know I'm immune to gloating," he said bitterly.

"That's not why I'm here. I just wanted to ask something."

Okamura sniffed as he picked up the hundred-yen coin and started to smooth out the edges of one of the strips.

"What's bothering you?" said Kaoru.

Okamura looked up in unfeigned surprise.

That bastard. That little snake. The twin sat looking at him with hardly a trace of an expression, just… waiting and watching, as a good tutor might wait for a student to figure out a question before giving feedback. Okamura couldn't be sure which twin it was, of course, and it really didn't matter. Because not only was the Hitachiin just as much of a _bishonen_ up close - for this was the closest Okamura had sat to one of the twins in recent memory - he also had to go and turn be KIND and CHARITABLE. Or he was pretending to be, which only added insult to injury.

"Are you kidding?" Okamura scoffed. He gestured at the desk in front of him. "I'm in about as much shit as I've ever been in in my life. I'll probably fall so behind it'll take me the rest of the year to get back to where I was, I'm stuck doing this for the next 24 hours, and my parents will probably ground me for the rest of my life. And you're asking me what's bothering me?!"

"No, I'm asking you what was bothering you so much that you went and did what you did."

Okamura's fingers balled into fists, one of them around the piece of tape, as he stared at the notes on the desk. Kaoru could not see his eyes, but he was fairly sure that he had a mind to shred the strips of paper so finely that no one would ever be able to piece them together again.

"I'm in LOVE with you two weirdos, alright," Okamura spat bitterly. "But spitballs and hitting you over the head with a book bag went out of style in middle school, so I had to come up with something else - NOW GO AWAY."

Kaoru did not reply, but a few seconds passed and it became clear that he wasn't about to go anywhere. Okamura looked up at him, trying to hide the desperation rising inside him. If the twin was demoralized at all, he did not show it. In fact, where HE, Okamura, might have been curled up in a ball in some corner if HIS notes had been shredded - or furiously trying to recreate what was lost - this boy was HERE, with HIM, asking strange questions to goodness knew what end.

"You're… Kaoru, aren't you?" he asked.

"Why do you say that?" The twin gave a hint of a smile.

"Because… " It takes an extraordinary person to pull up to the head of the class so quickly, and it takes an extraordinary person to reach out to me this way after what I'd done - he wanted to say. But it sounded so silly. And at the end of the day, it was just a feeling. "Because there's something about you. I have no idea what it is, but I think the reason you ended up at the head of the class is the reason you're sitting here right now."

It still infuriated him, of course, but it was the only explanation he could think of. Indeed, the boy across from him seemed to have motivation and no mistake! He had motivation enough not only to do things he, Okamura, never thought possible, but also to see the big picture and get buoyed up by it despite the worst of everyday setbacks. It was the only possible explanation for his eery calmness. He had a Purpose - a purpose that made it seem like he had one foot somewhere far away already.

"Well, you're right," said the twin. "I am Kaoru."

"Kaoru, why did you have to try for the top five? Why did you have to tread on my territory?" Okamura blurted out the words before he knew what he was saying, and was surprised by the pain that came through in his voice. The exhilaration at having cracked the Hitachiins' riddle had turned his head a little - at last, the twins had ceded their united front of Kafkaesque opacity, and it was no longer two against one, a much fairer fight.

"Your territory?" Kaoru asked. It wasn't an accusation - not even an expression of dismay or indignation. Just - a clarification.

"Yes." Okamura looked down, suddenly sheepish. "I've always been in the top five. For as long as I can remember. Longer than anyone else."

"Well, if you've been there longer than anyone else, what makes you so worried about me? Clearly, you've been able to hold your own against all sorts of bright, motivated kids. What makes me any different?" He smiled, showing a small dimple just to the left of his chin. "Or do you shred everyone's notes as a rite of passage when they climb up the rankings?"

Screw him.

In half a minute less than no time, the Hitachiin had gone from ceding ground to hitting right at the heart of the matter. The boy was good. Okamura felt naked and helpless, and a vague fear stirred in him again.

"I…" - want to know why you did it… No. That wouldn't do. The bastard was too good at sidestepping direct questions. "It's… Because you appeared in the top five out of nowhere," Okamura said after a moment. "That's never happened before. I feel like there's something different about you." Something… frightening.

The twin let his mouth flicker into a smile, though his eyes remained soft and calm as ever, like two clear pools.

"What do you want out of life, Okamura?" he asked after letting the silence sit, thick and globulous like a clump of clay between them.

"W-what?"

"I mean, what makes you do what you do? What makes you get up in the morning? What do you want to BE?"

The long-established honor student stared at Kaoru across the desk, and the wind whistled past the French windows, bringing a few crusted leaves with it.

"I… want to be an honor student."

Kaoru smiled. "But you won't be in school forever. What do you want to do afterwards?"

Yes, that was just the trouble, wasn't it? He'd never had a reason for doing what he did, and being first in his class had never been more than an end in itself. It was something he had simply decided one day after realizing he had little else going for him. And truth be told, no one besides him had cared, really. The teachers sensed he was type-A but less interested in the material for its own sake, so they left him alone. His parents saw him studying until all hours and wondered if it wasn't better that he go out and make connections that would serve him well in the future. But he had never been any good at socializing. Indeed, boys did not care for him and girls never looked at him. Why would they? When he tried sports he was abysmal, and he had no other discernible talents. What did he want out of life? He did not know. The years after high school and college had always been a blank slate - in a gray, cheerless sort of way.

"I don't know - what do YOU want to do afterwards?"

"I can't talk about it yet, but I know I don't want to work for my family's company - I'll leave that to my brother. It's not that that wouldn't be a great opportunity, I just think that there are other ways in which I can help the world."

Okamura stared at him as silence fell again. Now that Kaoru had said what he said, all his suspicions were at once confirmed and rendered lightyears less scary. Now, he simply struggled to wrap his mind around how alien a being Kaoru seemed to be. After all, even though everyone in the Big Five had their reasons for being on top, at the end of the day they were self serving ones - or at least that was how Okamura understood them. But Kaoru seemed to be thinking in quite another dimension. He saw the future, and he saw the world: things that had always seemed extremely hazy to Okamura. And he seemed quite ready to walk away from what he had, which took guts if nothing else. No, it was all gone - lost. There was no hope of defeating him when he wasn't even on the same level. If the same things didn't seem to matter to him.

"I think if you figure out what really moves you and where you want to end up, things'll get easier and it won't hurt anymore. We're all uniquely positioned to do something special just by being at Ouran. We should help each other."

Kaoru felt a hand on his shoulder, and knew it was Hikaru's.

"I think it's time to go, brother," Hikaru said, casting a distrustful glance at the boy across from them. "I think you need a change of scenery."

"Alright, brother," said Kaoru.

He got up and cast a last look at Okamura, who sat as wilted as ever. The wind rattled in the lock that held the two windowpanes together, and fell silent.

"You and I should talk more. I think we can be of use to each other. Find me sometime." Kaoru turned around and headed for the door, his brother's hand resting over his upper back as if to steer him. The younger twin seemed to accept it, and looked at the other in what seemed like wordless thanks.

"But wh-" Okamura found his voice a second too late, when Kaoru and Hikaru were nearly out the door. Kaoru turned around.

"Which one am I?" he said with a smile that was almost a grin. "That's easy. I'm the one who doesn't hate you."

Okamura looked at the two identical receding backs and caught glimpses of the smiling faces as the twins turned to speak to each other now and again. He felt something like a cool gust of air, as if a door had been opened. He could step to the other side, and learn more about what sorts of people these bizarre twins really were, but he had the distinct feeling that if he did, life as he knew it would be over.

He conjured up the younger Hitachiin's soft, pale-gold eyes, rimmed in the shadow of sleepless nights devoted to a mysterious cause. And his long limbs, and the slightly stiff way he held his shoulders as he listened like the page of a diary might, without a hint of judgment… And the way he had said, "it won't hurt anymore," as if he knew that emptiness could hurt too. Perhaps, Okamura realized, he had never liked life as he knew it to begin with. And maybe there was a reason Kaoru's name had found its way into the top Five - just as Kaoru had, without even trying, found his way into his heart, and tarried, and stayed.


	3. Christmas

AGE: 16, Winter of 2nd year in Highschool

Part 3: On Christmas You Tell the Truth

Okamura got up from his seat, walked past the rows of desks, pushed open the door, and made his way down the hall to the bathroom.

He heard noises before he even crossed the threshold, coming from the stall farthest away from the entry. He followed them and pushed open the door. It opened freely.

The twins were having sex. Both had taken off their blazers for easier maneuvering, and the pitcher had his back against the stall divider, the catcher twisting his torso to look back at him. The two were kissing - clumsily. The one behind, it seemed, had not done much more than unzip his fly - his belt was still in place. The one in front had lowered his pants slightly, and his shirt was tucked out, obscuring much of what went on below the waist.

After a few seconds, the twins had sensed Okamura's presence and the catcher broke the kiss to smile at him. He stretched out his hands, as if inviting Okamura to join them.

Okamura woke up in a cold sweat. The alarm had not gone off yet, and the radio clock read 5:24. He shifted to turn over, and found that his boxers were moist.

He stayed away from the Hitachiins for a long time after that.

…

In Japan, New Year's was for family and Christmas was for lovers. To that end, the twins had decided to have a night in, and were sprawled in bed watching "Love, Actually" as they slowly consumed a strawberry sponge cake. Hikaru had hidden a gift for Kaoru that he was hoped would help him get lucky without making his brother blush too much, and there was a large stack of Christmas mail between them.

In addition to the perfunctory season's greetings and the gag gifts from school friends, of particular interest was a stack of thick letters from across the Pacific. It seemed hard to believe, but six months had passed since Kaoru had been sent to Hazeltown, an eating disorder clinic on the island of Oahu, and Hikaru had followed him, faking a body dysmorphic disorder and an addiction to exercise. There, the friendships they forged had been far more helpful in sorting through things than any service the clinic offered - and emails and envelopes still flew like fat, gossipy birds across the ocean with some regularity. On Christmas, it was the custom among Americans to write Christmas letters, which they printed on nice stationery and mailed to all their friends. And when it came to close friends, many people sent handwritten letters, of which there was a fair number in the stack.

Of course, it still felt strange to see their Hazeltown friends' full names and addresses on the envelopes, since at the institution last names had been off-limits out of respect for patients from high-profile families. And yet, there they all were, landed safe and sound at their destination on the twins' bed in Shirokanedai, Minato Ward, Tokyo. As surreal a place as the clinic had been, certain things about it translated to real life far better than expected - even if the twins still found it hard to believe just how much their closest Hazeltown friends, whether by dint of wishful thinking or serendipity, resembled the various members of the Host Club.

Manchester Lesar - "Manny," and the exuberant Tamaki of the group when it came to everything but her brunette mane - was back at Duke after a year's leave, and had a new, fabulous life. Her letter was filled with curses aimed at organic chemistry (she, too, was aiming to be a doctor), as well as colorful descriptions of the silver lining. Apparently, she had it all, and being a serious student did not prevent her from e-dating a guy at UCLA whilst making the rounds of frat parties, dropping acid, and playing Pooh-sticks on a pedestrian bridge at five o'clock in the morning.

Kimberly de Bontin - or Kim, the tall, dark, quiet analog of Mori - had overcome her fear of Laduree Macarons enough to move back to Paris, where she did marketing for Dior, and was plenty happy in her cool, nonchalant way. She rounded out every letter with "Gratefully Yours," and addressed Kaoru as "Doctor," having never forgotten that he single-handedly talked her through a panic attack.

Samantha Sutton - or Sammie - a former beauty queen and the resident lolita - was back in Oregon doing good deeds and using her name to promote various charities.

Griffin Burkholder - or Gif, one of two girls who had been known as twins despite one being Asian and the other white - was still a patient at Hazeltown, but had been allowed to return to St. Paul, Minnesota for a Scandinavian Christmas. She sent a picture of herself in a white gown and Santa Lucia candles on her head, but her letter to the twins was about a third as thick as the one received by her other half, Shar - the "twin" who came to Japan to work for Yuzuha and was living with the Hitachiins.

Gabriella Lo Riccio - Gabs, and similar to Kyouya in her propensity for playing devil's advocate - had recently returned to New York City, was being home schooled, and saw woefully few people every day besides Kyouya on Skype. She insisted that it suited her just fine, however, and peppered her letters with attempts at sentences in kanji. If not for her insistent solicitations for feedback and corrections, Hikaru might have died laughing as he read them.

"Friendship, the gift that just keeps on giving, eh?" said Hikaru as he folded up Gaby's letter, put it back in the evelope, and tossed it into the "archive" pile.

"Hikaru, with all due respect," Kaoru chuckled, "Pathos is not your strong suit."

"Mmm - maybe you're right." Hikaru cut off a piece of sponge cake, straight off the platter, and put it halfway in his mouth, motioning Kaoru to take a bite off the other end. The younger Hitachiin gladly complied, and his brother pulled him into a long, slow kiss.

"But seriously," said Hikaru as they broke apart. "It's a bit of reality check, how easily life can separate people. At least the two of us are both here, instead of half a world apart. I mean - take Kyouya for instance. He's probably spending Christmas smooching a computer screen."

Kaoru tossed a caressing look in his brother's direction and lowered his eyes.

"And merry Christmas to you too, darling" - he laughed softly as he nestled into the crook of his brother's shoulder. The truth was, he suspected there would come a day when the two of them, too, would be spending even more time apart for the sake of their respective careers. But just once he decided to elbow the thought out of his mind. Besides, they'd always have the holidays - and not over Skype (™), with any luck.

The younger twin's eyes fell upon a last, unopened envelope. Unlike the ones they had gone through, this one was domestic post, and he did not think much of the return address at first. It was the name of a classmate of theirs - with whom he and Hikaru had an unpleasant run-in a few weeks ago. But there was no first name, and at the end of the day, Tokyo was probably home to hundreds of Okamuras.

Kaoru tore open the envelope and flipped open the card - a picture of a coach-and-four on its front. His eyes ran over the words.

And then his eyebrows shot up in horror, and he all but threw Hikaru off him as he leaped off the bed.

"Whoa - Kaoru, what's going on?!"

But the younger twin was staring, stricken, at the card in his hands and gave no answer for a good minute.

Hikaru got out of bed and came to his brother's side, but the younger twin shut the card before he could see it. Hikaru put a hand on his shoulder, but the latter continued staring at the coach and showed no sign he even felt the touch.

"It's Okamura," Kaoru finally said.

"Okamura?" Hikaru blinked. "You mean, Kenji Okamura, in our class? What about him?"

"It's… A suicide note."

"A… what?"

"A suicide note."

"A suicide note?! But - why?"

"He spells it out right here" - the younger twin flipped open the card again. "Kaoru," he read, "By the time you read this, I will be gone. But before I take my life I feel I should explain my reasons."

Hikaru's eyes widened, and he craned his neck over his brother's shoulder as Kaoru fell silent and they both read the lines that followed.

"You have a purpose in life" - the letter read - "I never did. For a while I thought it was either you or me, that the world had no room for the both of us. I hated you - not the least for having seen right through me. But they say that the opposite of hate is not love; it is indifference. In time I realized that there were only two ways to resolve things: either an illicit union between the sheets, or the death of one of us. But an affair like that is not something I can allow myself, and I am sure you would be disgusted by it as well. I also do not want your murder on my conscience, so I am going. - Kenji Okamura."

"Well, HE's nuts," Hikaru affirmed, squeezing Kaoru's arm as he finished reading.

"Very astute, Hikaru." Kaoru spun around, placed the card on the bedside table, crossed the room, and was rifling through the drawers of his desk before Hikaru had time to blink.

"Wait - what are you doing?"

Kaoru seemed to have extracted the book he was looking for - the Ouran student directory - and was leafing feverishly through it.

"Calling his house. And if no one answers, we're going over there. There might still be time -"

"Wait… What?" This WAS the same Okamura - Hikaru thought - who tried to destroy Kaoru's notes and had just written that his other option besides suicide was murder? And yet, assuming it was not a bluff, he could not help but feel his respect for Kaoru jump at least a dozen notches.

Kaoru had found the number and was already on the phone, on speaker.

"Okamura residence," said a calm woman's voice at the other end of the line.

"Yes, may I speak to Kenji Okamura?" said Kaoru, his voice borderline hysterical despite his best efforts.

The calm woman was silent for a few seconds. "Who is calling, please?"

"My name is Kaoru Hitachiin. One of his friends at Ouran."

There was another pause.

"Mr. Hitachiin, I hate to be the one to have to tell you this, but Mr. Okamura passed away yesterday."

"He… What?!" - Kaoru's mouth dropped open and he sank to the chair in front of his desk. Hikaru rushed over to his side to hug him around the shoulders, but once again Kaoru seemed to barely register his presence. "How did he…" Kaoru stammered. "How did he... die?"

"I am not at liberty to say, sir."

"May I -" Kaoru gasped for breath - "May I talk to his parents?"

"I can find out if they're available, sir."

The line went busy and an airy elevator melody came on. Hikaru knelt down in front of Kaoru and kissed him on the cheek. Kaoru leaned into the kiss slightly, but made no move to return it, and Hikaru noticed that "Love, Actually" was still playing in the background. He got up to turn it off, but not before giving Kaoru's hand a squeeze.

"Hello?" said a man's voice. Kaoru straightened up just as Hikaru returned to his side and knelt back down, cupping his brother's free hand in both of his.

"Yes. Hello. Is this Mr. Okamura?"

"Yes."

"My name is Kaoru Hitachiin, a friend of your son's from school. I just heard about your loss. I am very, very sorry." The man on the other end was silent - discouragingly so - and Kaoru swallowed and continued, the muscles of his throat working triple-time to keep his voice from quivering. "I was wondering, Mr. Okamura, could you tell me how it happened?"

"Kaoru," the man said, after a pause just like the woman and his voice just as sterile. "I appreciate your calling to express your condolences, but at this point we do not know for sure. We have a suspicion, but we've decided it would be best not to disclose that information just yet."

The man's voice certainly gave off the impression that he was not someone to be argued with. Kaoru paused to gather himself.

"Mr. Okamura," he said, lowering his voice. "I just received a note from your son where he says he was planning to commit suicide."

The twins almost heard the man's jaw drop across the wires.

"I'd really like to speak to you about it, Mr. Okamura," Kaoru said. "In person, if possible."

"Well, I expect the next few days will be busy with arrangements," said Okamura senior, "But I have a little time now. Would you be willing to come over within the hour?"

…

Before the hour was up, a car had carried Hikaru and Kaoru across town to the Okamura residence. It turned out that their deceased classmate lived in the the embassy district of Minami Azabu, in a large high-rise condo done up in Japanese style.

Mr. Okamura senior turned out to be a man of some presence. Though far from overweight, he appeared to take up a great deal of space, and wore a grave expression that seemed to have been etched into his features over the course of many years. It crossed Kaoru's mind that in another life he might have made a good shogun.

They shook hands and exchanged introductions as a maid took their coats and issued slippers to change into.

"And this is my older brother, Hikaru," said Kaoru, as the former nodded solemnly. "He's here for moral support."

"You two are Yuzuha Hitachiin's sons, is that right?" said Okamura senior in the same sterile voice he had on the phone, showing them into a sitting room where tea was arranged on a low table. "How is she?"

"Very well, thank you," said Hikaru - taking the initiative, as the first son, to speak first where family matters were concerned. "She's in Milan on business at the moment, but she should be back by New Year's." He wanted to mention that their mother was likely going to present them with a new sibling come spring, but bit his tongue just in time.

"Send her my wishes," said Okamura senior. "My wife is a fan - though I'm sorry to say she did not feel up to joining us."

The maid appeared once again, having glided in without a sound, and began to pour tea as the three of them sat down at the table.

"So," said Mr. Okamura, once the maid bowed her way out. "Were you two close with…"

The man paused, and while his face showed no change of expression, his eyes - two obsidian circles - had grown heavy and dull, as if a spark that had reflected in them had been snuffed out. The muscles of his throat struggled painfully with the syllables of his son's name.

Kaoru immediately felt lightyears more guilty.

"No, I wouldn't say so," he said, taking hold of his cup more to steady himself than anything else. "I can't say I knew him well, even though we've been in class together for a long time." He paused, staring at the steam. "But I would still like to… apologize for not having done more to prevent what happened."

Okamura senior appeared a trifle surprised - or as surprised as a shogun would have allowed himself to look. He turned his teacup several degrees back and forth, his eyes fixed at a point in space between them as if he were trying to X-ray Kaoru's words for hidden meaning.

"Well, I appreciate the sentiment," he said finally. "But I'm afraid I don't understand. If the two of you weren't close, why do you think you could have done something to prevent it?"

"Well," Kaoru replied, "It all began a couple months ago. "When Kenji was suspended for a week for trying to destroy another student's notes."

"Yes, I remember." Okamura senior's voice grew a degree cooler.

"I was that student." Kaoru paused - scanning Mr. Okamura's face for a change in expression. But there was none. The man sat as silent as a promontory overlooking the ocean.

"The class rankings had come out," Kaoru continued, "And I had risen to the top of the class very quickly. I had just started taking school seriously after the summer, and no one was expecting it. It seemed to have really upset Kenji, which might have been why he did what he did. In the end, he got caught, and his punishment was to fix my notes - which he did, so all's well that ends well. But I still think that incident was the beginning of the end."

He paused again, and took a swallow of tea. His heart rate had begun to gallop, and the words had been tumbling from his mouth faster than he could form them. He gripped his teacup and took a few deep breaths to steady himself. He felt Hikaru's eyes on him from somewhere off to the side, and had half a mind to glance back for reassurance, but decided he did not want to get distracted.

"These things happen," Mr. Okamura interrupted his thoughts, his voice less like a wall of rock than his aspect a few moments ago. "We cannot always foresee the actions of others."

Kaoru looked at the tablecloth in front of him. It was a diplomatic way of putting things, to be sure. But it did not make him feel any better.

"I know," Kaoru said, taking a deep a breath. "But the thing is - when all was said and done, I went and talked to Kenji. I told him that it was never my intention for us to be enemies. I tried to figure out what his goal was in life, and told him we might be of use to each other. But I must have said something wrong, because he only became more standoffish after that. And I… I never really tried again. I always told myself I would, but things kept getting in the way. I was either too busy with school, or with my new friends, or with this or that. I didn't even realize that I basically replaced Kenji in his friend group until it was too late. The top students in the class - they're all friends with each other. When you move up in the ranks, you get new friends - it's one of the perks of the job, I guess. Like a uniform or something..."

Kaoru had begun choking up, but did not register it until the tears had formed a physical obstruction to his words. He still could not bear to raise his eyes at Mr. Okamura, but suddenly found himself feeling a lot better. Like a murderer might have done after confessing - he realized - even if it earned him life without parole.

"But it seems no one else did anything either," said Mr. Okamura. "You can't have been alone in noticing that Kenji had grown standoffish. Did anyone else say anything about it?"

Kaoru chewed on his lips. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hikaru's hand inching into his space on the table.

Mr. Okamura was right. If anyone else noticed that Kenji had grown withdrawn in the past month, they had certainly given no sign. And while Kaoru was loth to tell the father this, it had turned out that the other honor students had never liked Kenji in the first place, and were only too happy to replace him with the two-for-one deal that was the Hitachiin brothers. In fact, Hikaru had become an honorary Big Fiver quite painlessly, as his role in the paper shredder incident made all the difference between the notes being salvageable and not, and the honor students appointed him their Secretary of Academic Sabotage Prevention.

And yet…

"It's true," Kaoru said. "The others mentioned it once or twice, but nobody did anything. Except I don't think that's any excuse. I still think if I had paid more attention, I might have seen the warning signs."

Because that was the trouble, really. Everyone, everywhere, was so wrapped up in chasing their own desires, hopes, and dreams that they managed to live inches away from other people's pain and remain completely oblivious. It took somebody dropping dead for anyone to take any notice.

"Here's the note," said Kaoru, pulling out a large manila envelope that contained the card from Kenji Okamura. "If you want to keep it, or read it. It has some… disturbing things in it I didn't mention. But just in case it's helpful in the investigation." He slid the envelope across the table, and made a move to get up. "Excuse me."

He suddenly felt sick to his stomach.

"Kaoru, wait," said Mr. Okamura in a low voice. Kaoru paused halfway to the door.

"I think I know what you want me to say," said Okamura's father. "And let me tell you - I know where you are coming from. I lost a brother-in-law to suicide myself. Some people consider suicide an honorable thing, but that doesn't make it any easier for those left behind. The fact is, you always wish you could have done more, and you always feel tempted to blame yourself. But some people… hold their cards close to their vests, so to speak. Not everyone can be helped, and not everybody wants help."

Mr. Okamura finished speaking and reached over to refill the twins' cups with practiced movements. He no longer looked quite so imposing from where Kaoru stood, but rather hunched and sad - like an old mountain, its crags and peaks smoothed over by time. A moment ago, Kaoru might have been frustrated, but found himself unable to remain so. After all, it was anyone's guess what other tempests had battered this man over the course of his lifetime. And yet he had survived - survived HIS SON, among other things - and was still here, pouring tea and making conversation with people he barely knew. It was nothing short of mind-boggling. And while Kaoru could not be sure if he agreed with the sentiment that you couldn't get through to everyone, he still found himself thinking that if he was setting himself up for a lifetime of work with tragedy, Mr. Okamura's example might have a thing or two to teach him when the time came.

…

The twins had said goodnight to Mr. Okamura, and Kaoru dismissed the car on account of needing a walk to clear his head. It was nearly nine p.m., and the younger twin was walking quickly down the street - past shops, trees, and lightposts decked out in Christmas lights - as if he had somewhere to be. Hikaru followed a step or two behind, and a good fifteen minutes passed in silence.

Kaoru hadn't been sure what he had wanted to get out of the talk with Okamura senior. Had he wanted to get blamed - to feel more justified in the blame he had heaped upon himself? Did he want absolution? He wasn't sure, and the visit had not left him with many answers. And yet he could not shake the feeling that if it wasn't for his desire to save someone in the future, there might be one more person alive in the here and now.

"You didn't have to do that, you know," he heard Hikaru's voice behind him.

His brother's words caught him by surprise, and he spun around. For the first time in his life, he had been so lost in thought he forgot he had been born with a flesh-and-blood shadow.

"Huh?"

Hikaru had stopped too, and had put his hands in his pockets. His scarf was wrapped comically around his neck in too many loops, and the tops of his ears were pink from the cold.

"You didn't have to rush over there and apologize. It's all very sad, and it was a nice thing to do, but you didn't HAVE to. You're not a doctor yet, and Okamura isn't some patient you couldn't save. He's just a - " Guy in our class, Hikaru wanted to say, but the gravity of Kaoru's expression made him stop just in time. "I mean… I don't want to complain or anything - you know I'm happy to support you and do whatever it takes, but… It's Christmas."

Kaoru stared at his brother, who had buried his hands deeper in his pockets and his face deeper into his scarf with a sheepish yet emphatic look in his eyes. He'd said nothing more, and seemed to have suddenly grown smaller, but as far as Kaoru was concerned he may as well have unleashed every guilt-trip mechanism known to man.

Because it was. It WAS Christmas. For the past couple of weeks, everything had screamed it, from the LED lights tracing every branch of every tree lining the streets, to the fiberglass snow in the store windows, to the eddies of shoppers and happy couples strolling the streets. And what's more, it wasn't just any Christmas. It was their first Christmas. As a couple. And after months of making his brother wait in the sidelines, making tea and caring for his exhausted corpse every night, he hadn't managed to take even one, measly day off to spend a bit more time with him.

"Hikaru, I…"

It was official. He was scum. The absolute, most despicable scum of the earth.

And he was going to put a stop to it. If what happened to Okamura had made him wonder, this just about sealed the deal.

"Hikaru, I'm sorry."

He took a step toward him, and before Hikaru could react, he had taken his brother's face firmly in his hands and kissed him, right in the middle of the bustling boulevard.

Hikaru was so surprised that when Kaoru pulled away, he remained frozen with his mouth half-open, his arms stiff at his sides. He had always wondered what it would take for Kaoru to be a little more forward. He'd even fantasized about it on occasion. But he'd never dreamed it would take the form of the PDA equivalent of streaking across a baseball stadium during playoffs. He glanced wildly around and noticed - with some relief - that the streams of passers-by continued to flow around them just as before, and surprisingly few people had stopped to look. He found himself thanking the Lord, for the first time in his life, that the twins' unusual look often got them pegged as foreigners. In Japan, there was a tacit rule that foreigners could break almost any taboo with impunity - from eating on the go to, apparently, kissing another man who looked just like you in the middle of the street.

"Kaoru, what's gotten into you?" he whispered.

Kaoru had released his face and taken him by the wrists. His eyes looked guilty.

"Hikaru, I don't want to do this anymore."

"Do… what?" Hikaru felt his blood run cold.

No. He couldn't possibly -

"This whole med school thing. It's not worth it. Because of my ambition, our classmate's dead, and you're feeling neglected…"

"Kaoru, no…"

"And this is only the beginning. I mean, who's to say what's next? What fresh shit tomorrow's going to bring?"

Kaoru had begun to blink - too quickly - and Hikaru saw his eyes reflect the bluish lights a little brighter. The younger twin let go and brought his sleeve to his face, covering his mouth. Hikaru felt a painful tug under his ribs and wanted to hug his brother right then and there, public decency taboos be damned.

"Kaoru… Please don't…" - he floundered - "I'm sorry… I shouldn't have said that. I was being selfish. I'm not feeling neglected at all, I'm fine - really…"

"No, Hikaru… No," Kaoru shook his head. "I'm the one who's been selfish. I felt bad, so I ran off to apologize and satisfy my own guilt, when this was the one night I should've spent with you."

Kaoru turned away again, and Hikaru thought he heard him begin to wheeze, barely inaudibly. The older twin felt like he was sinking.

"Look…" - he did his best to rally his forces - "Okay, maybe you're right. I'm not going to lie, I would've much rather spent the last hour in bed with you. But it's not just my opinion that you've got a gift. All those letters, at home? They're proof - you've made a difference for those people. And you don't even have any formal training yet."

"You're exaggerating," Kaoru replied dully. The tears were gone from his voice, and he sank onto the ledge of an empty concrete flowerbed. "Supporting your friends - anyone can do that."

Hikaru came over and took his hands in his. Kaoru accepted the gesture, but his arms hung limply.

"Okay, well, there's also today," the older twin said, "As soon as you got the news, you had a knee-jerk reaction to run and save Okamura. Even though - well, you know how it is - you're not supposed to say anything bad about dead people, so I'm not going to. And when you learned it was too late, you still wanted to play a part in helping the family get closure. You couldn't think of anything else."

"Yeah, some closure." Kaoru chuckled with disdain, looking past his hands at Hikaru's feet. "They met the guy who might've killed their son."

"Don't SAY that." Hikaru squeezed Kaoru's hands and gave them a shake for good measure. "Look. I think you've got an impulse to care about others that can not be denied. So I don't think you should quit what you're doing. In fact, I'm pretty sure you'll never be happy if you do. I just think you should take a little more time for yourself. Because I'm worried about you, honestly."

Kaoru looked up at his brother, holding his hands and swinging them gently back and forth as if they were both still five, his eyes soft and indulgent. He wondered if what Hikaru had said didn't make for a better description of what he saw before him as if in a mirror.

"Hikaru, I'm sorry." Kaoru rose to his feet. "I… got so carried away with everything I forgot how wonderful you were."

Hikaru gave a cheeky grin. "Nah, I'm not wonderful. I'm just head-over-heels in love with you, you silly bugger." He reached out and pinched a frost-kissed cheek. "Now let's go home. We've still got a good three hours, and we can do whatever you want. We can hold a candlelight vigil for Okamura, or I can pretend to be Santa, and you can sit on my lap and tell me what you want for Christmas."

Kaoru had been in no mood for jokes, but he still felt the corners of his mouth curving skyward.

"You… NASTY pervert," he chuckled, clapping a hand on his brother's shoulder.

"That's right," Hikaru smiled back. He wrapped his arm around his brother's waist, and began to steer him toward an intersection where they had a better chance of catching a cab. "And your answer BETTER be 'you' - or there WILL be spankings."


	4. The Pumpkin Carriage

AGE 18, First Year of University

Part 1: The Pumpkin Carriage

Through high school, everyone had been required to wear uniforms, but university students could wear whatever they wanted. To that end, Kaoru had decided to wear a T-shirt and his favorite sport coat. Yuzuha berated him for looking like a bum on his first day of his "new career" and more than encouraged him to wear a smart button-up ("Best foot forward," she had said, pretending to wipe away the requisite tear at her sons going off to college). But in the end she abated, as Kaoru - unlike Hikaru - had a practiced manner of being quiet with her until he got his way.

The truth was that the soft, broken-in T-shirt comforted him, and today he would need all the comfort he could get. After all, his first day of university would also be his first day of school without his brother. Hikaru would be doing business at Ouran University along with half their high school graduating class, and he, Kaoru, would be starting medical school at Tokyo University, better known as Todai.

And they had planned it that way, so he'd had plenty of time to prepare himself. For one thing, Todai had the (slightly) better medical faculty - Ouran's was small, given that medicine was a less popular choice among children of moneyed elite. In addition, university would be a good time to start building his new identity as not his brother's brother, but Kaoru Hitachi, poor cousin. Things always changed a great deal at university, and before long he would make new friendships and new connections, and would enter a new world just as his brother did the same. At the same time, old ties would wither away until only the important ones were left. And then, quietly, Hikaru Hitachiin would marry Kaoru Hitachi. With Yuzuha's help, they'd already fudged personal records to create the identity of Kaoru Hitachi, female. That was the name under which the younger Hitachiin would be attending Todai, and he would pass himself off as a transsexual if anyone went out of their way to check things. It was a radical solution, but Hikaru had confessed his love to him, and then came up a way to have their cake and eat it too despite the older son's obligation to keep up the appearance of a family man. After that, Kaoru hadn't thought twice about it. After all, it worked out: he WANTED out of the world of Japan-Inc, and he WANTED to be a doctor who helped real people. The eating disorder and the summer at the clinic in the States had merely given him a push in the right direction. And a part of him - as he had confessed once to Haruhi - had always wanted a legacy of his own, even if being by his brother's side had always made him feel safe.

Consistent with his new persona, by the first day of school Kaoru had dyed his hair brown, grown it into a short bob, procured brown contacts, and got some minor facial work done - most notably a nose-job. ("More Japanese," he'd said, and the doctor nearly dropped his pen in surprise. Everyone else who came to him wanted Western noses, and would have killed to be born with Kaoru's).

And there it was, the moment of truth. It was 8:45, with fifteen minutes till class time, and he stood across the quad from the First Medical Building, the timid rays of the April* sun warming his hands and face. The cherry trees were in bloom, but they did not put Kaoru in the mood for new beginnings in the slightest. He had been excited until recently. But at that moment all he could think was how much he wanted Hikaru at his side. Hikaru would have given him a cheeky grin and told him to show those Todai sissies who was boss.

(*the Japanese schoolyear begins in April)

But that was it, really - Todai and Ouran had always been rivals, and there was little cross-pollination between the two schools. There didn't need to be; both were part of the so-called elevator system. Students entered university prep schools as early as kindergarten, and usually stayed till the end. Kaoru had jumped ship deliberately, and as a consequence knew nobody - almost without exaggeration. In theory, he probably wasn't alone in being new. Todai was bigger and - unlike Ouran - attracted people from all over the country and from all walks of life. But it still felt like everybody in the crowd of chattering, milling students had already become fast friends with each other.

Ok, buck up, seriously - he told himself. Hikaru wouldn't want you to cry.

He WANTED to come up to people and say hello; he knew it wouldn't do to simply come to class and go home every day. He'd have to make friends, if for no other reason than the fact that he'd need trusted colleagues to rely on as he moved forward in his profession. And Hikaru would probably be having the time of his life in business school: almost all the students who weren't future doctors or lawyers spent their college years party-hopping. He wouldn't want Hikaru to feel guilty for being his brother's only social outlet. And wasn't this what this was all about? Each building up his own life to preserve what they had together?

And yet, he could not help thinking that it might have been easier to follow the same path, and work just under Hikaru at Hitachiin-group. They'd politely sidestep the marriage question whenever anyone asked, and they'd continue to spend every waking moment together. He could give up the game right then. Just turn around and go home, and it wouldn't hurt anymore. Perhaps transfer back to Ouran. They'd take him for sure - he'd finished third in his year after all, after Haruhi and Class Representative. And then this feeling would be gone - this feeling he had every time he turned to the side and found nobody there. Who knew, he might still be happy in the life he'd given up. Did he really NEED to to start Japan's first eating disorder clinic?

No. He felt guilty for even asking himself that. And he'd never be happy sitting behind a desk trying to figure out what women wanted to wear. Not that fashion was ever about what women wanted in the first place, not with all the pain and self-hatred it seemed to sow. In some small way, he thought, if he became a doctor and specialized in eating disorders, he might undo some of the damage for which his family's company was responsible.

Except, in that moment, even the prospect of picking a seat in the auditorium made him want to disappear. With Hikaru as his wingman, he had never felt awkward around strangers. If they didn't want to speak to anyone, they'd speak to each other. If they wanted to strike up a conversation with someone new, doing it together took no effort at all. But most importantly - and he himself struggled to believe it - Hikaru really was the one who almost always spoke first. Without his brother nearby, Kaoru felt like his voice had been stolen.

It's okay. Just breathe - he told himself.

You don't HAVE to talk. You can try talking tomorrow.

Just go in - that's it - and find a seat. He willed one foot in front of the other until the large lecture hall - bathed in sterile fluorescent light - opened up in front of him.

Yes, the front row will do just fine. No, maybe the second row. That way you won't be tempted to play with your phone, but won't look like a total gunner**. It'll all be over in three hours, then you'll have an hour for lunch, then one more of class. Then you can go to the library, find a secluded spot, and cry or study - or do both - to your heart's content. Or maybe it would be better to just go home after lecture is over. Home, where Hikaru might be as well, or at any rate where all his things were. The twins had elected to keep living with their parents until they - or rather Kaoru - got used to the new workload. Maybe he could even play with little Ageha before launching into the day's reading. Playing with his little sister always made him feel better.

(**medical student speak for someone who makes a show of trying really hard in school)

The lecture began, and Kaoru did his best to pay attention. With something else to occupy his mind besides Hikaru, the time passed at slightly faster than a crawl. The lecturer fleshed out the expectations of the course and launched straight into the material - a mere five minutes into the first period of the schoolyear. By the time a half an hour had passed, Kaoru was feeling almost happy. Surreal, even, that he was actually at Asia's premier medical school - something that he, a latecomer to the serious student party, had never completely believed would happen. And now he was hearing with his own ears what one of the world's best doctors had to say - things he might one day USE. His pen could barely keep up with his thoughts as he distilled the words into columns of shorthand.

But then the clock struck noon, and class was over. A general shuffling of feet and the clamor of conversation filled the air, and Kaoru felt sick to his stomach. It had been a while, but from time to time he still got bulimic urges when he was anxious, and this time there was no Hikaru to hold his hand. He's quite forgotten - from noon to one was lunchtime. Everyone would probably trickle away to fill the cafeteria and probably every cafe in a half-mile radius, and he would follow, at which point he'd have to subject himself to the humiliation of finding a seat in a sea of tables occupied by those who already knew each other.

He caught himself thinking that he would much rather eat his lunch in the bathroom - or rather, UN-eat it.

He reached for his phone and looked at the screen. No new messages. The last one was still from that morning, in the car: "I love you, go get 'em." He had half a mind to text his brother, but realized that if he did, the most coherent thing his fingers would muster would be the the word "Help." And he so wanted to be brave for Hikaru.

He got up with a sigh, and followed the crowd into the hallway, but the world began to blur and he had to lean back against the wall and close his eyes. A hot tear slid down his temple, and he felt it disappear into his hair.

He waited, but the feeling would not let go. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. All he wanted was for Hikaru to come back and hold him by the chin and tell him everything would be alright.

"Hey… Are you okay?"

Kaoru opened his eyes and saw a girl - on the short side and pretty in a childish way, with round cheeks deliberately done up with too much blush. She was wearing a long floral dress and woven rope-sandals that were almost too summery for the season. Her hair hung loose in wavy tresses that emerged from under a bucket hat, and she carried a messenger bag, also made out of some woven sort of material.

"Uh-" He brought his hand to his face, embarrassed.

"Why are you crying?"

"I- I… I miss..." He paused. The girl looked at him with her doe-eyes and smiled. "I miss home," he blurted out.

"You're homesick? So you're not from around here?"

"No, I'm not," Kaoru said quickly, happy that he'd blurted "home" instead of "my brother." In a twisted way he hadn't even lied - Hikaru's presence made him feel at home no matter where he was.

"Where are you from?"

"Hokkaido." It was true - if he was going with the fiction of Kaoru Hitachi, second cousin to Hikaru and a commoner. The fictitious girl-cum-boy, who still remained a girl on paper, was the child of a deceased childless couple from Hokkaido distantly related to the Hitachiins.

"Oh, Hokkaido! Cool! I thought you looked a little Ainu - are you Ainu?"

(*indigenous ethnic group of Japan, found predominantly in Hokkaido, look somewhat Caucasian.)

Kaoru blinked at her. Ordinarily, the question might have sounded rude, but he could hardly construe it that way, coming as it did from such a frank, open-hearted-seeming girl. And he was feeling far too broken up to stand on ceremony.

"Uh, yeah, part."

That much was true - Yuzuha was an Ainu extract, and the fact had somehow surfaced in her looks with a vengeance: she had hazel eyes, auburn hair, and features atypical for a Japanese. The twins' father, to compound things, was an unknown westerner.

"Well, you shouldn't cry, I'm sure you'll feel at home here soon enough. And I'm new too."

"Oh. Where are you from?" Kaoru straightened up and rolled his shoulders to give himself an air of nonchalance.

"I'm from Shiga prefecture. Small town. My parents nearly DIED when I got into Todai for medicine. And after a year of being a ronin, too." She giggled, her face an expression of unadulterated pride, and now that she mentioned where she was from, Kaoru noticed she spoke with a slight Kansai accent. "I'm glad I met you - we can be new together! What's your name, Mr. Ainu stranger?"

"Uh, Hitachi."

"Do you have a first name, Hitachi-san from Hokkaido?"

"Kaoru. But I don't really have anything in Hokkaido anymore - my parents are dead, and the house's been sold to pay debts. I live with… uh… extended family in Tokyo now." He no longer felt tears behind his eyes now that talking to this ridiculous bubbly creature - and the lies came easily. In fact, he was surprised how little they felt like lies, because until a minute ago he really had felt every bit the orphan from a faraway land. It didn't matter that that "faraway land" was Ouran, which was on the other side of town.

"Oh, you poor thing!" the girl exclaimed, "Are they nice to you at least?"

"Yes, they are," Kaoru replied. "Especially my… uh, cousin. But doesn't go here. And I don't know anybody."

"Oh, well." The girl beamed. "You know me! Let's go have lunch!"

Kaoru felt nauseous again at the thought of setting foot into a forbidding ocean of cold stares and allegedly taken seats.

"You… want to go have lunch?"

"Of course! Let's go to Mos Burger across the street! I love Mos Burger! You can't learn if you don't feed your brain properly - that's what my mom always says. And we've got biochem after break, yuck." She grabbed Kaoru's hand and all but unceremoniously started tugging him toward the exit.

"Uh, but I don't even know your name," he sputtered. And Mos burger? Dear God, he'd never been. What if he made a fool of himself? He realized it might have behooved him to do more research for his role as a commoner.

"I'm Tamiko! Tamiko Inoue."

Kaoru's phone beeped and he used his spare hand to extract it from his pocket. He had three new messages.

"Miss you, dahling. How's my favorite budding doctor?" said Hikaru's.

"Eyes on the prize, Kaoru! I'm sure you'll do amazing," read Haruhi's.

"I hope you're having a great day. Do Ouran proud," wrote Class Representative.

Kaoru and Tamiko emerged into the sunlight, and the twin smiled. Ouran no longer felt quite so far away - at least not as far as Hokkaido.

…

"How was your day?"

Kaoru looked up from his reading and tipped his chair on its back legs, hanging his head over the back to glance at his twin. He had not been expecting him so soon - it was only three-thirty. Indeed, he'd expected Hikaru to spend the rest of the day "celebrating," and making the rounds of club initiation meetings. After all, university really was a social club for the vast majority of students, and there wasn't anything wrong with that.

"Predictably bad at first," Kaoru replied, "But it got better."

Hikaru took hold of the chair and bent down to kiss his brother's upside down lips.

"Well, good."

"And yours?"

"I spent most of the day fielding questions about where you were."

"Aw - "

"It's okay, I did my best" - Hikaru beamed a peppy grin - "I opted to go with the tragic lover role, and complained all day about how you abandoned me and ran off across town." He plopped down on the bed and patted his knees with a beckoning smile. " Honestly, though… We didn't have to do this. This little secret we've got - it's a secret everyone knows anyway."

Kaoru got up, returning a slightly more demure version of his brother's expression, and came over to his side.

"Hikaru, we've talked about this -"

"Yeah, yeah, I know." Hikaru glanced up at Kaoru and pressed his lips into his forearm, toying with his hand. "You want a ring on your finger - and trust me, I want to give it to you just as much. It's just that sometimes it feels like the people we were surrounded by in high school are the people we'll be surrounded by forever. So even if we hadn't decided to play it safe with your secret identity and whatnot, we would've still been able to live the life we wanted. They would've understood, and respected it."

"You know it's not just that, Hikaru."

"Well, what else is there?" The older twin looked up wistfully at his brother. "The pumpkin carriage?"

Kaoru sat down by his side and accepted an arm around him.

"Yeah, the pumpkin carriage. The only reason you feel like highschool never ends is because it's only just ended." Kaoru pressed his torso against Hikaru's and draped just his legs over his brother's. Sitting on his lap, which Hikaru seemed to want - did not feel proper given the nature of the conversation. "It doesn't seem like things will change, but they will. And the scary part is, there's no stroke of midnight to tell you when it'll happen. It might not even happen all at once. So the only way to win is to beat time at its own game, and change first. There's a time and a place for two incestuous twins to be the hot couple, and that time and place sure isn't when they're 30."

"Hah, when did you become so eloquent, brother?" Hikaru brushed Kaoru's bangs aside and paused to look into his eyes, as if searching for remnants of pale gold under the dark contacts. "You should've gone to school to be a writer - or a philosopher."

"Yeah, maybe." Kaoru chuckled, pulling back and propping himself up on his elbows. "But I thought I'd do the responsible thing and actually learn a skill in case mom's company goes belly-up."

"Mom's company is NOT going to go belly-up." Hikaru smirked. "I won't let it. And even if it somehow does, our investments are more than enough to live happily ever after. But seriously" - he added - "Speaking of change, I can't help thinking: I feel a little bad. It seems you're doing all the changing around here. New look, new school, new career, new friends - it doesn't seem fair."

He wasn't the only one who thought so, either. When the twins met Haruhi over coffee at the end of last term and revealed the full extent of their plan, Haruhi - true to form - had immediately put words to the fear that haunted Hikaru for months.

"Well, it's great that you've got it all figured out," she had said, "But it seems Kaoru's the one making all the sacrifices. I'm a little concerned that this might be one of those situations where you love so much you lose touch with who you really are."

But Kaoru had smiled and said that there was nothing to worry about - that who you really were was always in flux, and hardly dependent on what you looked like, where you found yourself, or who you associated with. And while Haruhi had not seemed convinced, she had let the matter rest and no one brought it up again, even though it continued to pull at Hikaru's heartstrings.

Kaoru, however, seemed completely - almost frighteningly - unflapped by the whole situation.

"Nah, it's okay, I don't mind it," he said, stretching out his legs on the bed as he arched his back with a contented sigh. "Besides, I wouldn't change for anyone but you, and at least one of us has to stay true to where we come from."

"But it's hard - starting from scratch."

"Not too hard," Kaoru smiled at the ceiling. "I'm actually kind of excited about it." He sat up quickly and sidled up to Hikaru, taking hold of his chin as his other hand reached down to caress something else entirely. "And so long as I get to come home to THIS, nothing else matters."

A sound somewhere between a gasp and a moan broke from Hikaru's lips as Kaoru's swept by to kiss them. His flesh was already straining against his pants, determined to break free and meet his brother's caress halfway.

"Kaoru… Oh - oh MY - Kaoru..."

Kaoru had dropped down to his knees between the other boy's outstretched legs, and was fiddling with the top button of the his pants, his eyes both mischievous and tender.

"Kaoru," Hikaru whispered, fighting to keep from squirming as torturous tingles raced up his thighs. "You know that's not my favorite…"

"Don't lie," Kaoru smirked as his hand began to massage small, insistent circles into Hikaru's most sensitive spot - just below the tip. "You LOVE finishing in my mouth. And kissing me afterwards to taste your own splooge, you dirty fucker."

Oh, God. Fuck. "Fucker." The word was like sex on his lips. Hikaru genuinely thought he might have died right then and there - but oh, what a good way to go that would have been.

"W-well, yeah…" he stammered. "When we're in a hurry, sure, I like it - But - unghh - I just like seeing that pretty face, is all -" And if I kiss it so hungrily after we're done, it's because I've missed it…

"You like to see that pretty face, eh?" Kaoru chuckled, drinking in the way his brother oscillated between squirming and hyperventilating. "Sounds a bit narcissistic - seeing how it's your face, too…" Hikaru, it seemed, was the only guy alive who did not love blowjobs, and Kaoru missed no opportunity to make fun of him for it.

"Well, we don't look IDENTICAL anymore - unghh - now that you've - anghh - had all that work done…"

"Pshaw, we still look similar enough…"

Kaoru popped the top of Hikaru's pants open, and a sigh shook through the latter. He felt his brother's fingers on his searing flesh, and was instantly gone.

"We can make this fun," Kaoru whispered, his eyes narrowing into slits. "How about this: you sit back, close your eyes, and imagine yourself doing the nastiest, most perverted things you can think of to me. I'll take care of the rest."

"B-but… b-but…" Hikaru made a last, valiant attempt at protest. "What about you - you don't get -"

"Oh, I get plenty out of it. Nothing makes me feel more yours, and nothing makes me feel more like a dirty slut of an uke. Makes me jizz in my pants just to think about it. Now…" He cocked his head with a winsome expression of an apprentice maiko. "Last question for good sir. How would your like it to end? Would you like your love all over my pretty face, or should I swallow like a good boy?"

"Unghh… your call -" Hikaru felt his voice evaporate from his throat as Kaoru's lips brushed against him, teasing with his breath. Another moment, and he had to clench every muscle to keep from lurching backward as his heels dug into the carpet. Eddies of pleasure chased each other up and down his body, and he yearned for something to hold and dissolve them in - by themselves they were too much to handle. And the fact that he could not touch Kaoru, except for his shoulders and hair, was torture. His fingers quivered over the nape of his brother's neck, warm from his efforts, where the hair thinned out before turning into a soft frizz.

And yet - oh, Lord, Kaoru was good at this. Undeniably good. He had said, sometime ago - and Hikaru still found this heartwrenching - that years of sticking fingers down his throat had made it easy. And yet the tight, pulsating warmth of his brother's tongue and mouth, with so many ridges to ride over, left no room for qualms of any kind, however guilty he might have felt at first for enjoying Kaoru's dubiously acquired talent. Part of him - THAT part of him, anyway - was exactly where it wanted to be, and being pleased in a way only Kaoru knew how. It did not matter that from that angle, not only could he not see Kaoru's face, but if he suspended his disbelief just enough he could barely recognize him. It was still Kaoru alright, because Kaoru never did things halfway, and always got what he wanted and delivered what he promised. Indeed, Hikaru was seen by all who knew them as the leader because he always spoke his mind, and had the annoying habit of throwing around his feelings like a child. But behind closed doors Kaoru had been the boss of him for many years. He simply hadn't been so obvious about it until recently, nor had Hikaru ever admitted just how much he liked it.

After a few minutes, Hikaru could not take it anymore, and let loose down Kaoru's throat. The younger twin froze as he swallowed with a small whimper. A moment passed in silence, and then a shiver ran across Hikaru's thighs as warmth and lips slid down his flesh, suddenly far too sensitive. He felt weak as a newborn baby - the explosion having sapped his strength - but he used the last of what he had to pull his brother into his arms, pressing their foreheads together.

"I don't think I know who you are," he whispered. "But I'm pretty sure you're the fucking love of my life."

Kaoru smiled and pressed his lips against his brother's.

"Okay, cool," he said. "Now taste yourself, you blowjob-hating fucker."


	5. Room Number Three

AGE 18-19, First Year of University

Part 2: Room Number Three

At first, Kaoru could not figure out why Tamiko had been a ronin for a year.

Even in a class of Japan's best and brightest, her stamina and wit put her a cut above the rest. She certainly stayed in the library later than everyone, and Kaoru never saw facebook (tm), tumblr (tm), or yahoo chat** (tm) flash across her screen as she burned the midnight oil. And while a stranger might have judged her to be silly and air-headed, baby-faced and fond of florals as she was, Tamiko answered more in-class questions than anyone else - correctly and for the most part bravely. Before long, many of their classmates were coming to her for explanations when textbooks and lectures were not enough, and the sight of Tamiko in front of a white board, smiling through an explanation of the Krebs cycle as though she were sharing news with friends was beacon of hope for put-upon students everywhere. In time, Tamiko even asked Kaoru if he wanted to lead a study group with her. He agreed, and Tamiko's gentle, simple (but never too-simple) explanations - along with his colorful diagrams - proved an indispensable resource for their fellow sufferers at the yoke of higher education. They even took up jokingly answering their phones when their classmates called as "TamikoandKaoru - he draws, she explains - at your service." From then on, they spent nearly all their time working together on something or other, and Tamiko's words had indeed become prophetic. They had become friends. It was simply impossible not to.

(**for some bizarre reason, the instant messenger of choice in Japan seems to be Yahoo chat)

But the cherry trees had shed their pink froth, the thermometer began to rise, and before long it was summer and the first set of exams was just around the corner. By that point, the usually bubbly Tamiko began to grow quieter by the day, often rushing off right after study group without a goodbye. At first, Kaoru wrote it off to pre-exam nerves. After all, they had fallen into a pattern where they shared many things, but there were also things that they could easily assume about each other by virtue of their common condition as intellectual proletariat. It was therefore not until the night before the test, when the study group had been going strong for seven hours and was down to its last four members, that he got the real answer.

"Okay, blah, blah, hot, swollen knuckles, kidney stones, uric acid, blah, blah, patient has gout - what do we do?" read Kaoru, squinting into the packet of review questions. He looked up at his friends, who were all fighting fatigue with varying degrees of success - a pot of coffee sitting ceremoniously in the middle of the table. "Takasaki, what do we do?"

Takasaki, a rough-around-the-edges frat boy type and a regular at the study groups - possibly on account of Tamiko's qualities beyond her brains - woke with a spasmodic snore and fell forward.

"Uh… Check their vitals?… Ask them if they smoke?" - he mumbled, blinking his eyes.

"No, we know what he has. What do we do?"

"Arghhhh..." Takasaki buried his face in his elbows with a groan. "The extent to which I don't care right now is staggering..."

"Yeah, I feel you there, but what if you had a patient who had gout?"

"I'd tell them to eat less meat, drink less wine, and stop being a little bitch."

"Well, that's one way of doing it." Kaoru smiled civilly. "But this is multiple choice. I think they're looking for a drug. Something in the vein of allo - allo-what?"

"Allo-operator, can you please connect me to the nearest suicide club 'cuz I'm at the end of my rope?" said Tamiko dully into her notes.

"Huh?"

"Purinol," she said hastily. "Allopurinol."

"Alright, guys," said Kaoru, quickly shutting his binder. "I think we should call it a night. Sleep's probably going to do more good at this point anyway."

"A-men," said Takasaki, sliding his chair back almost too quickly. Tamiko and the fourth die-hard, a girl named Mayumi, began to gather their things as well and Kaoru did the same, but when the other two were almost out the door he hung back and paused by Tamiko, who looked like she was moving through water.

"Hey." He tried to catch her eyes. "You okay?"

"Yeah."

"Are you sure? That joke of yours made me a little nervous."

Tamiko's hands pause over her bag.

"It's just a joke. I didn't mean anything by it."

The other two had gone, and Kaoru pushed the door to the study room shut.

"Tami-chan," he said, doing his utmost to tread lightly, "Are you worried about the exam?"

She stood over her things, her fingers molded around the strap of her bag, and looked unshaken as a piece of marble aside from the blush that had been turning her cheeks a deeper and deeper red. Kaoru waited, and the streetlights outside the window flickered.

"Kaoru, there is something I haven't told you," she said slowly. "It has to do with why I was a ronin for a year."

She paused, scrunching up her face as if bracing for a shot.

"Oh?" Kaoru raised his eyes, willing the rest of his face into paralysis. He had definitely wondered about that, in fact he had almost been morbidly curious, but had eventually chalked it up to illness on test day or some other extraneous factor.

"I didn't pass the entrance exam the first time because I didn't TAKE the entrance exam," she said, her voice lifeless. "I got about five minutes in, but I was too nervous and couldn't take it anymore. I ran out of the room screaming, and tried to run through a glass door."

Were he with anyone else, anywhere else, Kaoru would have needed all the composure he had been gathering into a fist just to keep a straight face. But given the fact that it was Tamiko, and she stood waiting for his reaction like a lamb before a butcher's knife, he squared away his amusement and let his lips drift into a soft smile.

"Well, Tami-chan," he said. "I'm glad you told me, but I definitely don't blame you. The university entrance exam is one scary-ass test." He recalled the day he had taken it, and when the proctor called stop, it was the only time in his life that he had ever looked down and seen his knees physically shaking. After that, he was a basket case for two weeks, avoiding Hikaru and his imbecilic parrot-praise and bursting into tears when there was no one in sight. In fact, the physical letter with the results was the only thing that convinced him that he had not failed the damn thing, and even then it took a while to believe that it wasn't just a clever Photoshop effort on Hikaru's part.

He paused to survey her expression, but she looked no less like a lamb being led to slaughter, so he continued. "But look, you're here. You've been on top of your game all semester. You're always helping others, you always get the tough questions in class, and we've been practicing all week. What makes you think tomorrow should be any different?" Indeed, it was not a naive question. He had kept his voice very measured, but even so - he was fighting very hard not to take her by the shoulders and scream, "but you KNOW this - you know it better than me, better than all of us!"

But she was still looking at the table. "No, you don't understand," she said, so quietly that the buzzing of the fluorescent lamps nearly drowned out her voice. Her chest and shoulders shook under her generously ruffled top. "Tomorrow actually COUNTS. And when it counts, I freeze up and it feels like everything I've studied is gone and I'm going to fail."

Kaoru sighed, trying his best to make the air escape his chest less-than-audibly. Bad as he felt for Tamiko, when it came to test anxiety it was the blind leading the blind. And if Tamiko's joke and the thought of her empty chair in the lecture hall had sent an electric shock down his spine, it hadn't made his own problem disappear. It had merely helped him get out of his own head a little bit.

"Look" - he made another effort to gather himself - "To be honest, I feel the same way. But from what I heard from the upperclassmen - and as logic suggests - getting in is tough, but once you're in, the only way you can fail is if you don't do the work. And you and I have been definitely doing the work."

"I guess." She sighed, tightening her grip on the strap.

…

The next morning, the hallway outside the auditorium was crowded and abuzz, and Kaoru made his way past clusters of classmates - some standing in groups, some leafing through books, some leaning against the walls mumbling to themselves. As he walked, he tried to avoid making much eye contact. The whole thing reminded him of a class trip to Israel in middle school: they had gone to see the Wailing Wall, and if back then the sight of people praying and swaying, invariably in groups of ten, had conjured up visions of despair so black it threatened to pull in anyone who stood too close, this time the sentiment was doubly true. To keep his vision from tunneling and his legs from giving way, he kept his eyes peeled for Tamiko, and before long he saw her, huddling at the end of the hall between a trash can and a fire hydrant, her knees pulled up to her chin and her hands over her face.

He knelt down next to her and gently pulled her hands away.

"Hey." He made a pointed effort to smile, for the first time that day.

"I don't think I can do this, Kaoru," Tamiko whispered. Her cheeks were dry, but her eyes were glassy. "It doesn't matter that I've been doing the work. It's all gone. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna ki-"

"No, Tami-chan. That's not true. And don't say that…" He tightened his hold on her wrists. "I know what you're going to say. But don't DO that. Please."

Kaoru paused, struggling to settle his heartbeat - which echoed relentlessly in his ears. He felt the information leaking out of his head with every stroke - but right then it didn't matter.

"Tami-chan, tell me again why you decided to come to med school."

Tamiko raised her eyes and seemed suddenly notice that her hands were in his. She tried to pull them away, but he held them firmly.

"And tell me the truth."

"W-what do you mean?"

"I said, tell me the truth. Are you doing this for your parents? Or maybe for someone else? Are you afraid of disappointing someone? Because if you are, I want you to go to the station right now, get on the next train for Shiga prefecture, and tell whoever it is to stuff themselves. Because if you're not doing it for yourself, it's not worth feeling this way. Nothing is."

Tamiko's face worked spasmodically for a second, and Kaoru thought he saw tears in the corners of her eyes. But she seemed to quickly gain the upper hand, and her features settled back into marble. For a few more moments, she seemed to be struggling to say something, but just as she opened her mouth the auditorium doors snapped open and the echo ricocheted down the hallway, startling both her and Kaoru so much he let go of her hands.

…

The first question proved mercifully easy, and while every step of the way to his chair Kaoru had feared he would pull a Tamiko and spend the first five minutes staring at his sheet only to run out of the room screaming, after he was one page it was smooth sailing throughout. Indeed, sailing was perhaps the wrong word. Rather, he had plunged in head-first, and did not surface until the proctor called pencils down three hours later. Somehow, he even managed to forget about Tamiko - whose situation had sat in the back of his mind and - paradoxically - kept him feeling both afloat and besieged from yet another side for the last twelve hours. Flipping back through his test, he hazarded a smile. If nothing else, he had answered every question, and had even mentally hi-fived himself a few times as he picked out tricks planted by the test writers. His knees were shaking - yes - but the residual adrenaline rushing through his brain whispered that at this point it was almost to be expected. It was medical school, after all.

He looked around the room - which had exploaded as the proctor called time. Takasaki - a few chairs away - was fist-bumping everyone in reach and Kaoru gave him a thumbs-up as he caught his eye. Mayumi and her two neighbors were hot on the trail debating answers. The boy on his right looked like he had had his spine ripped out of his back, and a few others were gesticulating, even as some less-than-flattering descriptions of their head lecturer rose above the noise. But as Kaoru's eyes fell on the chair where Tamiko had sat, his stomach dropped to his knees. It was empty. His eyes darted to the door. It had just shut - but not before he thought he saw a blur of floral fabric and curls that sent a mule-kick straight to his chest.

Kaoru jumped out of his chair like one possessed, nearly knocking the thing over, and darted to the front of the room, shoving his test in the hand of one of the assistant-proctors. He ignored her as she grumbled something to the tune of "first-years" and "how-hard-is-it-to-follow-protocol" - and was in the hall in a a matter of seconds. The other classes had also just gotten out, and for a few frustrating moments the hall was inundated by bodies. By the time he had muscled his way outside, he was almost sure that Tamiko would be gone without a trace. More than that, the blood in his head was back, and he struggled to focus his vision in the sunlight. He squinted and he thought - he THOUGHT he caught half a glimpse of Tamiko's skirt across the quad - the broomstick sort she wore a lot, billowing in the wind. And while part of him knew it was ridiculous - nobody could pick out anybody else at that range - who else at Todai would have any reason to look like they were running for their life at that moment?

He took off running without another thought, cutting across the green, nearly colliding with a second-year who hailed him and asked - with what would have been a sunny expression - how the test had gone, and scattering a flock of pigeons. He then proceeded to leave his footprints across the picnic blanket of a couple of girls who were half-studying, half-sunning on the lawn, apologized profusely, leaped over a bench, and emerged on the other side of only to dart between two buildings into the street. Once there, he nearly knocked five salary men and an office lady off their feet before catching sight of the piece of floral fabric again. And yet, he only really caught up with her on the top step of the descent into the subway.

"Tami-chan!" He seized her by the shoulder.

For a second he was worried it was not her, but she spun around, and tears were streaming down her plump cheeks, her lips quivering unabashedly. She looked like she had dropped eight years, and was barely into her teens as she puffed out her lips in a sad imitation of a scowl.

"Get away from me, KAO-chan."

"Tamiko," - in another situation, he might have struggled to bracket his incredulity that soft-spoken Tamiko had said something so brusque - "I need to know you're okay. That you're not going to - do anything."

"Ok, well, I'm NOT okay," she spat messily, pulling away from his grip and wiping tears with her sleeve, "It was awful. I kept second-guessing myself on everything… And now I have no idea -" Her voice collapsed, and so did what seemed like her entire torso.

"Well, look," said Kaoru tentatively, taking a step toward her and making a move to take her hand. "At least it's over now…"

But she had turned her back and was walking quickly down the steps before he could finish.

"Tamiko, come back here!" He ran after her, cursing under his breath. Who would have thought girls in platformed shoes could walk so quickly? And to add insult to injury, he had nearly caught up with her again when a crowd of people who had just gotten off the train flooded the staircase. When Kaoru finally extricated himself from the jostling mass of suits, Tamiko was already on the other side of the tourniquet, walking briskly to the platforms. He choked down another curse and rifled through his wallet for his train pass, doing his best to keep his eyes on the floral pattern. Once through, he took off running again, diving into the fluorescent, checker-tiled world of the underground just in time to see her disappear around a corner.

When he caught sight of her again - there was only one platform - his whole body felt like someone had taken a grappling hook and sliced him right down the middle. Tamiko was standing still - very still - on the yellow line that lined the tracks, and was looking downward.

"Tamiko!" he yelled, "No! - fuck no!"

He bolted up to her, aiming to seize her wrist, but she stepped aside such that he nearly lost his balance and fell over the edge.

"Tamiko, what are you doing?!"

She looked up at him, and though her face was sodden with tears she was no longer grimacing.

"Y-you won't understand," she said in a small voice, her light-brown curls shaking with the rest of her. "I- I appreciate all you've done for me, Kaoru, and - and you've been a good friend. But… I can't take any chances. The people at home… They… They SAID they want to see Miss Goodie Two Shoes Honor Student get broken by the big city and come crying home. They think - They think I think I'm too good for our town. And they WANT me to fail."

"No way… they said that about YOU?!"

Tamiko nodded, freezing as a new volley of tears threatened to lyse her from the inside.

"Yeah… my mom… She… She turned out to be a… And, well, after what happened, no one expected any good to come of me, and they've been waiting for things to end badly ever since…"

"What happened?"

But Tamiko quickly turned red to the roots of her hair, and her knees had begun to knock under her skirt. She buried her face in her hands.

"I… I can't…"

"O…kay," Kaoru paused, suddenly noticing his throat was parched. "Well, in any case, don't you want to find out how you did first, before you do anything rash -?"

"I KNOW how I did," she retorted in the voice of a five-year-old child stomping her foot. "I don't need to see it to know it. I choked and I screwed up. Like I knew I would. Like I always do. That's all there is to it."

"I still don't think you should do this, Tamiko."

"Why not?" Her tiny chin shot up and for a moment she looked almost defiant. "It's… the honorable thing to do, isn't it? When you've failed?"

As they were talking, the platform had been quiet and empty, apart from a few fellow passengers who sat on benches detached as the dead, buried in cell phones and newspapers. But just as Tamiko finished speaking the low drone of an train began to rise and she took a step toward backwards, away from Kaoru and toward the edge.

"Yeah, no," Kaoru said, a hard note of acid rising in his voice. "Maybe a hundred years ago -" He wilted momentarily as she flashed another menacing look - or as menacing a look that could be mustered with cheeks as peachy as hers. "Listen, I -"

Her features were quickly turning to stone again, and he took a deep breath.

"I don't want you to do it - IF that means anything. I know we've only been friends for a few months, but I will not lose another friend to suicide. I'll throw myself on those tracks first, if that's what it takes."

The sound of the train was growing louder, and had begun to stop both their ears. Tamiko scrunched up her forehead and took another step defiantly away, staring at him from under knotted eyebrows. He took a step as well, hoping to seize her by the arm and bar her physically from jumping, but she twisted out of his grasp and broke into a run. The noise of the train became a roar and she ran faster, but as she tried to dodge to her side and jump, she felt a sharp pull against her scalp as her body lurched to the other side. Her heart - already in her throat - nearly jumping out of her body with all the attached blood vessels.

When she opened her eyes, she and Kaoru were on the floor in a tangle of limbs, and a uniformed man was standing over them. The train had come to a halt, and the other passengers were peering over their shoulders hesitating to board.

"Miss, is this man bothering you?"

Tamiko sat up and rubbed the side of her head, which was buzzing, and turned to Kaoru, who looked shaken, but had not moved away. He was looking at her at a little sadly, his skin uncharacteristically pale under the fluorescent lamps, and she suddenly grew conscious of his leg under her calf, her skirt a messy tourniquet around them both.

She looked back up at the train conductor.

"This man just saved my life," she said. "So, yes, I guess you could say he's bothering me…" A small smile flickered across her face.

…

"So how was ye olde trial by fire?" The chime-clock above the mantelpiece had just chimed nine when Hikaru waltzed in, tipsy as usual from his thursday night pub crawl with his university social club, and tossed his hat onto the rack. "All dragons vanquished?" He swooped down with a flourish to kiss Kaoru's waiting lips - the latter uncurling himself from his favorite upholstered chair, where he had been cuddling with a glass of watered-down umeshu and his laptop.

"Lemme guess… three beers and a sake bomb?" He chuckled. "You're mixing metaphors again."

"Correct-amando!" Hikaru beamed, falling into his brother's lap and sprawling his limbs over the arms of the chair. "Right diagnosis as usual, Doctor Holmes." He hiccuped. "Down to the drop."

"Great." Kaoru planted a kiss on his cheek and Hikaru arched his back, cat-like, letting his hands and feet nearly touch the floor.

"No, really how did it go?"

"Well, I did hear a couple horror stories - someone used just the supplementary textbook to study and is convinced they missed all the freebies, someone else didn't realize there was a second part to the exam, one person attempted suicide ruined salary man-style**, and a few people have plans to burn the professor in effigy over the weekend. But none of those people are me, so we'll see what happens. I'm pretty sure I passed, anyway."

(**jumping under a train was for a long time the suicide method of choice for middle-aged Japanese men)

"Well, good. That's all that's important." Hikaru straightened up and jumped out of the chair, stretching out his hands. "My brilliant, future doctor of a brother. I never doubted you could do it. Not for a moment."

Kaoru chucked and got up, taking his brother's proffered hands.

"Well, let's not count the chickens before they hatch," he said, hanging back a bit as Hikaru wrapped his arms around his waist and pulled him into a hug, nibbling up his neck. "Who knows, they might decide we're all a bunch of idiots and fail us all…"

"Well, in that case, you'll still be the smartest idiot of them all." Hikaru paused, having reached his jaw.

"Yeah. Right."

"And the smartest person in THIS room since that time you made me roleplay Einstein…"

"Yeah, that was great." Kaoru began to chuckle in his belly in spite of himself… "Honey," he quipped in a falsetto voice - "You have GOT to change your shirt - it smells SO BAD!"

"Ohhh, honey, but why-y-y?" Hikaru moaned, sucking in a mouthful of neck as his hands traveled down to his brother's hips - "That's just the smell of lu-u-u-urv, what's so bad about it?…"

"Well at least cut your hair" - Kaoru made a show of looking repulsed - "You look like a rabid dog!"

"Honey, on a quantum level, the scissors can't even touch my hair…"

Kaoru was struggling not to squirm, but failed mightily in the face of a particularly powerful paroxysm of giggles and ended up doubling over, pulling himself out of Hikaru's grasp. He collapsed on the floor and laughed for a good minute, and when he opened his eyes, Hikaru was on the floor next to him, staring unblinking at his face with a glassy smile.

"No, seriously, Einstein," said Kaoru, pausing for a second to smile at just how nice Hikaru's peachy skin looked, framed by the exotic whorls of the rug. "I wanted to get your opinion on something."

"Oh yeah, what is it, dahling?" Hikaru flipped over to his stomach and propped his hands under his chin, kicking up his legs. Even after all those years, Hikaru - even when not-quite-there - had a remarkable talent for looking at his brother as if nothing else existed, and he was a ten-year-old child presented with a toy so desired and so precious, he wanted nothing more than to gaze at it all day.

"Well," Kaoru propped himself up on his elbows. "I've been thinking of starting a club."

"A club?" Hikaru turned over and lay back so they were facing in the same direction, and fixed his eyes on the baroque patterns framing the ceiling. It was well into summer, and the sun was only just beginning to set, washing pink over the walls and ceiling. "What sort of kind club? Not a host club, by any chance?" He chuckled, turning over to Kaoru and pinching his cheek.

"No, more like a… suicide prevention club."

"Oh… Cheerful." Hikaru smiled, pressing his lips together.

"Or maybe more generally, a mental health awareness club."

"Oh, okay. Well, that's definitely up your alley. Might be good practice for the future, too."

"But the thing is, I kind of want to make it more of a service group. Like - there are a lot of things people can't talk to their friends or family about because they don't want to lose face, and there's a lot of stigma associated with going to a professional. So many people don't see one until they're really far gone. But wouldn't it be great if there was someone you could talk to anonymously, whether on the phone, online, or in person... Maybe a student just like you, but who's sworn to secrecy and whom you might never meet otherwise? After all, Todai's a really big place."

"That sounds interesting. Go on."

"I mean, would you go to something like that if you had a problem?"

Hikaru shrugged. "Yeah, why not. Assuming I was absolutely sure it was confidential. I mean, what would you do if you came and it WAS somebody you knew?"

"Well, ideally there would be multiple people in the group, and if whoever's on duty is someone you know, they could call someone else. Or we can have multiple people on duty at once. We'd have to figure that out, depending on how many people are interested…"

"Alright." Hikaru reached over and laced his fingers with Kaoru's. He then moved closer, so their bodies were molded into each other even as they both lay staring at the ceiling.

"The only thing is, I'm not sure how to… market it, as it were. Or what to even call it."

"Oh?" Hikaru had taken up Kaoru's arm and had begun to kiss from the knuckles to the wrist.

"I mean, I don't want to push the mental health thing a WHOLE lot. A lot of people just don't see themselves that way, and it might deter them."

"So, it's just… talking and listening and making people feel better, right?"

"Yeah, more or less."

"Well, in the Host Club there was lots of talking and lots of listening and cheering people up."

"Hikaru." Kaoru chuckled. The ceiling had begun to turn periwinkle. "Seriously, I get that you miss high school, but not everything can be a host club."

"Okay, fine." Hikaru let go of Kaoru's hand and snaked his arm under his neck, the better to fold himself around him. "But seriously. I know what WE did was more along the entertainment line, but the girls who came to see Tamaki - they definitely told him things. Private things. It must've been the princely thing - as in, your honor's safe with me, milady…" He brushed his lips against Hikaru's neck, perhaps to make it clear that the term "milady" was not just a descriptor of Tamaki's regulars.

"Okay, fair enough," Kaoru echoed, feeling the pitter-patter of warmth down his spine right on cue. He wondered, vaguely what he thought he was expecting, trying to have a semi-serious conversation with a tipsy Hikaru rolling around on the floor. And yet it felt rather sweet - and, for the lack of a better word, perfect - as if they were rug rats again. The only thing missing was a couple of panda onesies and him letting Hikaru get the best of him wrestling. "And I wouldn't be averse to having a similar atmosphere to the host club - as in show up, have a seat, have a cup of tea and a chat. But the problem is, people have very specific associations with the idea of a Host Club. I don't think we can sell it as something as innocent and thoroughly unsketchy as we did in high school."

"Ok then - how about… Confessional?"

"Too religious. We don't want to alienate the whole non-Christian crowd. As in, you know, about 98% percent of the population."

"Point." Hikaru pressed his lips together. "How about 'tell us your secrets?' Or 'your secret's safe with us'?"

"Too… sketchy."

"Need to talk?"

"Hm. I think you may have something there…" Kaoru mused for a moment as he smiled at nothing in particular. "Need to talk? Tea and confidential conversation" - he rolled the words over on his tongue.

"I like it."

"How much?" Kaoru turned quickly his side, popping his eyes at his brother with a broad smile suddenly splayed across his face.

"Mm, almost as much as I like you" - smiled Hikaru, pulling him into a take-no-prisoners embrance. "But no, actually. Not nearly."

…

"Everyone, thanks for coming," said Kaoru, standing up and casting a look over the room. "Vice President Inoue and I" - he glanced at Tamiko, who sat primly by his side, fresh and glowing under her curls - "Honestly, we did not expect such a good turnout."

Indeed - more than sixty people had packed into the small classroom they had reserved for the evening. In fact, there were so many more people than expected that Tamiko ran out of homemade pastries halfway through. And many of those who came were people they did not know - that is, not medical students. Well, all the better - he thought. Students from other faculties had more free time, and it would be easier to make the commitment.

"So you are all here," he began tentatively - belatedly realizing that he had woefully little experience in speaking to causes he believed in - "Because you already know, innately, how to be a good listener. Maybe you're the person all your friends come to with their problems. Or maybe you just want to help people and think this is the best way. Now, we're a bit different, as far as peer counseling groups go. Our goal is to make a place where people can go and talk about anything, without fear of blowback, or gossip, or anyone judging them. We won't necessarily give advice - but almost everyone has something they wish they could vent about or talk through with someone, right?"

He paused, looking from face to face for a something like comprehension. Having found it in a few, he went on.

"There will be interviews - which you can sign up for at the end. But before you do, I'd really like to stress that knowing some of things your peers can't tell anyone else is a BIG responsibility." He paused again. "But don't let that intimidate you. If you join, you'll get full training on all the right things to say, and the right way to handle a crisis. In fact, by the end you'll be something of an amateur psychologist." He smiled. "Any questions so far?"

A hand went up in the back of the room.

"Yes?" said Tamiko.

"Excuse me, but you never said what the club's going to be called," said the speaker, whom Kaoru could not see.

"Oh, that's easy." He smiled, pulling his dazzling Host Club smile out of a long-forgotten drawer with a spark in his eye. "Our tagline is THAT," he gestured at the blackboard behind him, where "Need to talk? Tea and Confidential Conversation" was written in large multi-colored letters. "But our main goal was to keep people from assuming things, so we decided to go with the name of the space we were able to reserve. Room Number Three."

[Just a note: There WILL be more drama with Hikaru down the line; it's not just all going to be coming home, talking about their day, and random horsing around. But once again, I needed to set a few things up first.]


	6. Double Jeopardy

AGE 19, First Year of University

Part 3: Double Jeopardy

Having rescued Tamiko from near-death under the wheels of a train, Kaoru began to notice an inconvenient side effect only a few weeks later - when they came back from summer vacation. First, Tamiko began showing up to school having tried what was an obviously new lipstick or nail polish every few days, and seemed sad when he pretended not to notice. Then, she also took up vacillating between sitting too close to him and too far, and sometimes, from the corner of his eye, he would notice her doodling absently as she stared out the window. On top of that, when they were one-on-one she fell silent more and more often, and when the study group took breaks and discussed dating she always bit her lip, cast a furtive, wistful look at him, and made no comment.

For weeks and months, he tried to ignore it. A part of him hoped she would simply forget it. Their club was going well, and beyond the public service they provided, its thirty-odd members - two staffed each night, and thus everyone had two monthly shifts - became a sort of friend group. Privy to the secrets of the student body and sworn to secrecy as they were, they could not help but confide in each other. The academic grind, too, kept them all so busy they hardly had time to blink. And so the seasons turned: fall swept away summer and congealed into winter, and before Kaoru knew it, Christmas and New Year's had come and gone, and Valentine's day was right around the corner. As the calendar turned to February, he knew he could swallow the uncomfortable thought of Tamiko and her soft looks for very much longer. And so he waited for the day with a mix of dread and fatalism, and was not surprised at all when in addition to the boxes of candy from sundry female classmates, his cubby in the library had a gift from Tamiko as well, though the card bore a slightly more personal message**.

(**In Japan, women give send men gifts and cards on Valentine's day, while men return the favor on "White Day," which is on March 14.)

They had an appointment to meet, as usual, in one of the small-group study rooms in the library after class. Kaoru had decided to get there early, and was concentrating for all he was worth on not letting his guilt overflow when Tamiko finally walked in. Her eyes were fixed on the ground and she was clutching her bag - the same one she carried when they met - as if it contained her entire livelihood.

"Tami-chan" - Kaoru decided to cut to the chase and held up the box and card. She froze like a rabbit before a snake. "I really appreciate the courage it must've taken you to write this, and you're one of my favorite people. Really. But I can't. I'm sorry."

Tamiko's eyes were already bright and seemed to be held open by invisible stents, and no sooner than the words were out of his mouth that her whole face began to quake and she collapsed violently into a chair.

"I… I knew it." Her voice quivered. "I'm such an idiot…" He waited for her to bury her face in her hands. Strictly speaking, it was not as if he had never let a girl down easy before. He and Hikaru had been doing it since primary school, and had even derived a sick joy from it. But that was then - before the world had ceased to be divided into "us" and "them." Before Haruhi. Before the Host Club. Before… everything.

"No, Tami-chan…" He came over and knelt beside her so his head was below hers. "You're not an idiot. You're very brave, and you're amazing, and after all we've been through in this place, I care about you. A lot. But I can't." He paused. "There's… someone else."

She let her eyes meet his, and to her surprise they were not crying. Rather, she suddenly had a hard, faraway look.

"You know, speak for yourself," she said.

"Huh?"

"Really? Someone else?" She threw him a look like if he were a toad or something equally distasteful. "We've known each for other nearly a year, we spend all our time together, and you haven't mentioned liking anyone ONCE. And now suddenly there's someone else? Right."

"Tamiko, you don't understand…"

"Why have I never heard about this someone else? I thought we told each other everything! I told you about my test anxiety, and the people back home, and about mom… " The blush in her cheeks had begun to gathering steam, and tears pooled in the corners of her eyes. She paused, and her face hardened into a glare again. "You know, you don't have to lie. If you don't feel the same, just say so."

"No, Tamiko, there REALLY IS SOMEONE ELSE. It's a bit complicated, but it's pretty… well… serious."

"Oh, really? Serious? Okay, fine -" She got up with a huff, still clutching her bag. "CONGRATULATIONS. I hope you end up very happy together, once you figure out whatever it is that's so complicated." She scoffed. "And by the way - I don't know about you, but from where I stand that's kind of a big part of your life to keep secret."

She turned and marched to the door.

"Don't follow me," she spat over her shoulder. "Don't worry - I won't DO anything."

From the moment she began shouting at him, Kaoru had felt thoroughly dismembered, and even after she slammed the door behind her and the room fell silent, it still took took a few seconds for him to remember what was what.

Don't follow her? Enough time had passed since their first exam for him to trust her on that point. After that day, she had indeed begun to tell him everything and anything, and had insisted that it really did curb her urges to take a sharp object to her wrists. He also knew - though thankfully not through personal experience - that an angry Tamiko with gel nails was a weapon of mass destruction second only to Honey. And at any rate, he had new nothing to say, and knew very well how annoying it could be when someone trailed you and begged forgiveness when you were not yet ready for parlay. Indeed, it was something Hikaru did all the time, and it was one of Kaoru's least favorite things about him.

He took a deep breath, put Tamiko's gift in his backpack, and cracked open the door to the hall.

"Ladies -" He said, casting a frigid look over a group of girls who looked as if they had been huddling under the door trying to read lips through chinks in the blinds. "Don't we have a quiz to study for?"

He turned on his heel before they could answer, and was well on his way out when Takasaki caught up with him halfway across the main hall.

"Yo! Hitachi!" he called, "Did I hear right - you turned down Inoue? Sorry, half the class had bets, but my question is: are you crazy - or just gay as a picnic basket? I mean, who the hell turns down THOSE knockers?!"

"Not a good time, Takasaki…" Kaoru muttered under his breath.

"Listen, if you don't want her, would you it mind if I -?"

"You know what, Takasaki? Go fuck yourself," said Kaoru, pushing his classmate in the chest so hard the latter nearly fell against a bookshelf in surprise.

It was the rudest thing Kaoru had done all year.

…

Takasaki had been right: a good chunk of the class really did have money riding on his and Tamiko's love life. Roughly a third thought they were the perfect couple and that it was high time they realized that, another third was convinced Kaoru was gay, and the rest were not sure and waited with bated breath for the outcome. And in the end, the sight of Tamiko in tears running out of the study room was all the news that they needed. To get away from the people who had either lost or won money because of him that day, Kaoru decided to go home early.

In keeping with his commoner role, when he was not pressed for time Kaoru took the subway. And that day it proved a godsend, because he could not have focused on schoolwork if he tried. Indeed, he decided to take the longer route, and stared listlessly out the window as the train emerged into the sunlight.

The devil had turned his tongue to blurt out the bit about the someone else - and yet part of him had been looking for an opportunity all along. With everyone else, he had slipped comfortably into his role of Hitachi from Hokkaido, and it was just what he needed to get a new lease in life. In fact, he hardly missed his old one. And it was easy: the med students' camaraderie was based largely on the here and now, and in the face of drug lists, latin muscle names, and endless lists of facts to memorize, where they came from and who they left behind had grown largely irrelevant.

But Tamiko was the one person he felt terrible lying to, even if it was only by omission. She had been right - she DID tell him everything. She even told him about the time her mother had driven her car off a viaduct, and was found to have a blood alcohol level of 0.3 - her mother was an alcoholic, and no one had ever thought to let her know. And Kaoru, too, had always told her a good deal of what went on in his head. But then again, it wasn't just that. With Tamiko, everything was always so… simple. She wore her heart on her sleeve, and always spoke her mind, and a kinder mind Kaoru could hardly imagine knowing. Indeed, Tamiko was the sort of girl who spent an afternoon putting a baby bird back in its nest, and dragged stray animals home to nurse back to health, and stopped to talk to homeless people in the park - the last being something Kaoru observed more than once, bewildered, as they walked to the subway station at the end of an evening. And if Tami-chan threw tanties and had a hard time holding back, the fact that she was sweet as honey the rest of the time made it easy to forgive her.

Indeed, in a different world - a world where things made more sense - he could easily imagine falling in love with her. As balconies rushed past the window, laundry billowing in the wind - he imagined them sharing sundaes, riding a ferris wheel on a weekend after exams, him lifting her up and spinning her around, pocket-sized as she was, and burying his face in her bosom. He imagined them taking the train to Shiga to meet her family, and then going out to an izakaya for drinks after her father gave them his blessing. He imagined them settling into a house together, in a nice unassuming part of Tokyo, perhaps with an apple or a cherry tree in front. Then finding jobs at the same hospital and having tea on tatami mats as they talked about their days, her body soft and inviting under a demure lace nightie. One day, they might even have a child or two - seeing how Tamiko, so gentle and kind, seemed to be made for motherhood. For either Kaoru Hitachi or Kaoru Hitachiin, it might have been a very good outcome.

But the world DIDN'T make sense. And nothing in his life had ever been simple. And even if he did try to spring for a life with Tamiko - the sort that would take all his troubles away - he still had the nagging feeling that he would never be happy. Not while Hikaru still walked the same earth, anyway.

…

Kaoru rose out of his chair to meet Hikaru as soon as he came in - for the last six hours, his books had been a lost cause anyway. That week had seen another frost, and as he watched Hikaru unbutton his tailored coat, the latter's eyes glassy and his cheeks blotchy as a victorian era TB patient's, Kaoru could not help but feel guilty.

"Hello, darling, happy Valentine's." Hikaru put his arms around Kaoru and hugged him more tightly than he expected. "How was your day? Good?"

"Yeah. There was a bit of drama at school, what with it being Valentine's day, but ultimately it was okay."

Hikaru had buried his face in the angle of his neck and shoulder, but pulled back and studied his face.

"How about you" - Kaoru asked hastily. "How was your day?"

Kaoru's hands had reached under Hikaru's coat to hug him back, but the warmth of his brother's body and the way his heart pounded against his ribs made him feel guiltier still, so he motioned him to turn around as he helped him out of the heavy garment.

"Oh, don't ask," Hikaru sighed, dragging his feet to the bed and collapsing into it as Kaoru squared the coat away into the closet. The task done, the younger twin came over and sat by his brother's side.

"First, my laptop died - with all my stuff on it," Hikaru began, turning over on his back as Kaoru reached to take his hand. "Then, mom told me all my latest edits were crap and that I was crap, and that, being crap, I had to redo them. And Shar's in bed with the flu, so she couldn't help me. And then this snooty bitch heiress we've got working for us - goodness knows why, I didn't hire her - all the interns she's in charge of quit because they couldn't take her anymore. One's even suing for psychological damage. So obviously mom fires her and tells ME that now it's up to me - I either have find new interns or do all their work. And where the hell am I supposed I get ten interns right about now?"

"But that can't possibly be your job - finding interns?"

"Oh, Christ, my job is to do anything mom tells me."

"But you've got school -"

"And that's another thing. School. I shouldn't've even gone in today. I walk in, ten minutes late on account of that accident on the expressway - well, you might've heard about it on the news. And the lecturer sees me and asks me a question on what he just went over - right off the doorstep, the douche bag. And I obviously have no idea what's going on, and there's a paper due in a day that I haven't even started, and I think that was the last nail in the coffin. There's no way he's going to give me another extension now…" He paused, drawing a ragged breath. "And don't even get me started on how we had our club meeting today, and the leaders got into a huge bitch-fight, right in front of everyone, and forced everyone to choose sides. And then, after all that, I go to do some crying and some paper-writing in the peace, only to have Tamaki call and go on for an hour about some problem he has with Haruhi. I don't even remember what it was -"

"Hikaru" - Kaoru put a hand on his brother's shoulder - "Seriously. That's not your job. None of it is, except school potentially. Maybe you need to tell mom she's going to have to do without you for a little while."

"I can't." Hikaru buried his face in his hands, pulling his knees up. "I'm in too deep, and mom's not the only one I'll be letting down."

Hikaru's cheeks still radiated like a furnace, and he took Kaoru's hand in his and brought it closer to his face. He examined the lines, looking a little sad, and pressed it to his cheek as the muscles of his throat tensed.

"Anyway," he said with a swallow, "All I thought about all day was you. How I was going to come home and see you, and how it would all be okay."

"Aw. Hikaru."

Hikaru's cheek was warm - far warmer than it should have been. It suddenly became harder to breathe and Kaoru felt queasy in his stomach.

"Hikaru, you look sick," he said quickly. "Let's get you under the covers. And I think you need some water. Or tea. Do you want tea?"

"I… No. I don't. I just want you." Hikaru's voice shook and would have sounded desperate if it wasn't half-dead. "I love you."

Darn. It seemed like he was going to have to cordon off his issues and share his brother's bed after all that night, as deserving of being flogged as he felt for cheating on him, if only in thought. And yet, this could not go on for very much longer. Strictly speaking, it was not even about Tamiko. If not her, it would have been someone else, somewhere else, who would have made him wish for a life where he would not have to choose between lying to himself, to Hikaru, or to the rest of the world. After all, no true relationship could be based on lies, and while a kingdom for two had been more than enough for the better part of their lives, he was no longer at an age to believe that romantic love was all he needed.

"I love you too," he said.

Hikaru sat up with a heavy sigh and leaned forward, and Kaoru helped him pull off his clothes until he wore nothing but a t-shirt and boxers. The younger twin then pulled aside the covers, and once they were both underneath he let Hikaru entwine him in his arms and wrap his legs around him. They lay in silence for a few moments, the younger twin stroking the older one's hair.

"I - I don't know where I'd be without you, Kaoru" - Hikaru finally said, in a voice that implied quite heavily that he did, and that it was somewhere on the ledge of a tall building.

"Well, I'm here for you, Hikaru. Just relax," Kaoru replied, his hand sliding to the small of his brother's back where the muscles were especially tight. "I think you need more sleep. All that other stuff, it can wait. I can talk to mom and see if she can let you go for a couple days… And maybe I can help with the essay - I've got a relatively light weekend coming up."

Hikaru sighed, folding himself against his brother's chest and laying a palm against it, the better to feel the heartbeat.

"Yeah, I don't know if that'll work," he said brokenly. "I doubt you know anything about the Hong Kong futures markets, and we've got our Moscow boutique opening soon, so mom's mad as a banshee. Some of the administrative stuff that goes on in Russia - you seriously can't make that shit up…"

Kaoru ran his his fingers through his brother's hair.

"I still think it wouldn't hurt to try."

In another situation, Kaoru might have given more thought to the irony - usually, cuddling at his brother's chest like a small, suckling babe was HIS place. And usually his brother was the one who looked at him with soft eyes, and told him all would be well, and drew his fingers through HIS hair. But then again, seeing things turned on their head did not feel wrong either. Rather, it felt like something he had always known but had never been called upon to do - and Hikaru's hair, where he had not gelled it in place, was soft as a sparrow's undercoat. Indeed, Hikaru showing his sad and put-upon side in a way that didn't involve yelling and throwing things - the very fact that he had a vulnerable side to show, even though Kaoru had always known, in theory, that he had one - all that quickly put the younger twin's mind to work wondering what more he could do.

Hikaru was breathing quietly, his eyes fixed on the ceiling in defiance of sleep, and Kaoru reached to the bedside to turn off the lamp. His brother had indeed not been burning the candle at both ends. Over the course of the last few weeks, Kaoru had woken up several times in the middle of the night to find Hikaru awake and plugging away at his laptop. And Yuzuha, too, had been running him ragged, while the social club at school had stepped up its drinking. So all-in-all his brother was running on fumes far more than he was.

"Hikaru." Kaoru pressed his lips against his brother's cheek. The skin had grown cooler, but it still seemed extraordinarily thin, and he could see the strands of blue under its surface. "Come on. It's going to be okay."

He slid his hand down to his brother's waistband, pushed down his boxers, and took hold of a part of him that had been growing hard despite Hikaru's fatigue. The older twin uttered a small moan and tensed his thighs. Kaoru began to stroke, first slowly and firmly, then faster, and adjusted himself so he was kissing Hikaru's neck. Hikaru moaned and turned to him, searching for his lips, and Kaoru let him find them, propping himself up on his elbow so he could do what he was doing even as Hikaru's hands sought desperately under his shirt and fingernails scraped his back.

Kaoru did his best to squeeze harder toward the top, just the way Hikaru liked it, and it did not take long for the older brother's breaths to grow faster and more ragged. Once he began to arch his lower back as if in pain, Kaoru broke the kiss, pushed aside the covers, and reached to the bedside table so that when Hikaru finished, he could be ready. Once Hikaru did, Kaoru caught it deftly in a tissue, and the older twin collapsed against the pillows like a toy whose spring had run out.

"Feel better?" Kaoru asked with a smile, pulling his brother's pants back up and kissing first his forehead and then his lips. Hikaru tried to pitch up to meet him, but no avail. His entire body had grown flaccid as if he had been hit by an Amazonian poison arrow dart.

"Shhh. Just sleep, Hikaru," said Kaoru, pressing another kiss on his forehead and pulling the covers over them both. He pressed himself against his brother's side, this time wrapping his own limbs around him, and listened to the rickety buzzing of the clock to keep from nodding off in the womblike warmth. Once Hikaru's breathing changed to suggest he was asleep, Kaoru folded his arms and legs out of the way, got out of bed, and walked to the window.

Outside, the floodlights cast an anemic glow over the courtyard, and a few snowflakes swept past the window and disappeared. Kaoru slid open his phone and dialed a number.

"Hey." Tamiko's voice still sounded a trifle sodden.

"You okay?"

"Yeah."

"Look, I'm sorry about today, but I really need to see you."


	7. The Counselor and the Friend

AGE 19, First Year of University

Part 4: The Counselor and the Friend

Having successfully put Hikaru to bed, Kaoru's first destination was Yuzuha's atelier. Even at eleven on a Friday, and even with Hikaru routinely helping out so she could spend more time with her youngest daughter, late-night sessions were still a routine part of his mother's life, and it was certainly not beyond her to make her staff work on Valentine's. After that, Kaoru made his way to Tamiko's. By the looks of the address, it was a rental or a condo in an unassuming neighborhood forty-five minutes from the university. Once there, he dismissed the driver, and paced in front of the house for a good fifteen minutes.

Somehow, he had gotten it into his head that if one person knew and accepted him for who he was, secret identity and all, a thread would be formed between two words and things would not be as pearshaped. As far as acceptance went, Tamiko was definitely his best bet. She was quite the hopeless romantic, and thoroughly devoted to the voiceless and the downtrodden. But so many things could still go wrong, and if they did… He did not want to think what would happen then. Plus, at the end of the day, who knew if she would even believe him if he just came right out and said it? He could imagine it very well - her listening with wide eyes to the story, politely waiting for the end, and then smacking him violently across the face and bursting into tears."First I have what may be the worst day of my life because of you," she would wail, "And then you have the gall to come here and mock me?!" He would have nothing to say to that, because it really was a story only a deranged otaku could come up with, and even evidence could be fabricated.

But if there was one quality he and Hikaru definitely shared, it was a conviction that sometimes it was NOT better to let things settle down. The only thing Hikaru might have done differently was that if Tamiko did not want to talk to him, he would have forced her.

…

It was not until he got to her apartment that Kaoru realized that he should have put more thought into how he presented things. When Tamiko opened the door, she wore an ankle-length nightie made of what looked like fifty layers of tulle, but the expression on her face was far more compelling for being that of a girl questioning if this might perhaps be the night certain items she had bought with a blush and kept in her nightstand would finally be put to good use. And, come to think of it, Kaoru probably looked rather haunted himself.

"Don't worry," he said quickly, almost before she had finished looking him up and down. "I really do just want to talk. I want to tell you… well, everything."

He squinted to see if her eyes were still rimmed from crying, but the hall was dark and so was her foyer. She motioned him in with a nod and a shuffle of feet.

"Of course. Come in." Her voice was still wooden, just as it had been on the phone, but she no longer seemed upset, and when she had opened the door, even despite her trepidation she had smiled a little.

Tamiko's place was even smaller than Haruhi's - the only other commoner apartment he had ever been in, and consisted of a hallway, an appendix of a kitchen, and a bed room perhaps a hundred feet square with tatami mats, low table and futon. Tamiko pushed the futon out of the way and motioned Kaoru to sit as she went into the kitchen to put a kettle on. While she was gone, he watched the wall of windows in the building across the way, which all seemed to be glow different colors. Some were pale green, others more yellow. A few were even orange. It was too far to see inside, but two of the windows had grown dark before Tamiko returned again.

"Look, you were right," Kaoru said once they had settled down at the table, legs folded underneath and the kettle between them. Tamiko had been looking at him a little sadly, her eyes seeming to take up more of her face than normal. "I feel terrible for not being straight with you, and I think you deserve an explanation."

She was silent.

"But first, I really want you to promise that you will try and understand - and that you won't not tell anyone."

He waited as Tamiko pulled at the drawstrings of her nightgown, searching with her eyes for something in the whorls of the table.

"How can I promise something like that if I don't know what it's about?"

Kaoru smiled.

"Do you have paper and a pen?"

"Of course."

The items in question were pulled out of a drawer, and Kaoru set to work. Three minutes later, he had made two paper hats, then scribbled some characters on each of them and slid them over to Tamiko.

"I'd like you to first hear me out as a Room Three counselor" - he pointed to one of the hats - "and if at any moment you feel like you might be ready to make the conversation more personal, you can put on the Friend hat."

Tamiko nodded slowly. She had to admit it was a clever idea. Room Number Three staff were duty-bound just like professional psychologists were. They could not share what they heard on service with outsiders, unless they had reason to believe that someone was planning on hurting themselves or others. And even if they chose to unload on fellow staff if it ever got too much, they were not allowed to mention names, appearances, or identifying details.

"And if not," Kaoru added, "You can just stay a counselor the whole time and not involve Tamiko-the-friend at all - though I certainly hope that you do." He let the tiniest bit of Host slip into his smile.

"Alright." Tamiko looked up and smiled as well, and her face had a cloudless, Mona Lisa-like simplicity. The way it usually did when she put her issues aside for the sake of someone else's. She placed the Counselor hat on her head.

"So what made you come in today?" she asked with a hint of a wider smile as she topped off his tea. "Sorry, we're out of treats right now." Her voice, unlike her manner, sounded a bit forced, like Tamiko staffing Room Three despite an exam looming. Still, it was nothing he could not work with.

"Well, there's something I've never told anyone at Todai," Kaoru began. "Basically - and I know it seems hard to believe, but" - he begged his muscles to help him keep a straight face, for now that it came down to it, he felt ridiculous even saying it. "I'm not who I say I am. At all. You might say I've got a secret identity. Or rather, two identities, because I'm not really sure which one's secret at this point."

He paused, moving to take a sip of tea. He had kept his eyes on her, but before he could even blink she had pulled off the Counselor hat and put on the Friend one.

"Bullshit! I don't believe you!"

…Well, so much for that.

Tamiko folded her arms across her chest and was staring back at him, her eyes two very indignant coals.

"Which is why I brought proof," said Kaoru with a tight smile, trying his best to sound as if there had been no interruption. "Put your other hat back on and I'll show you."

Tamiko obeyed with like a child shamed for throwing a tantrum. Kaoru reached into his backpack, which he had kept by his side, and pulled out a folder.

"In fact, I am not from Hokkaido," he said. "I am from here. And my name is not Hitachi. It's Hitachiin."

He took another swallow of tea, watching to see how she fared in the face of the H-bomb. His mother's name, while not exactly a household one, was plenty familiar to anyone who as much as feigned interest in fashion, and, unlike "Hitachi," it was unique enough to be unmistakeable.

Tamiko's mouth dropped open, but just a little bit. She might have had a mind to speak, but thought better of it. Kaoru opened his folder and pulled out his Ouran yearbook with pictures and names of the graduates. He then taken out a magazine dated several years back, opened to a spread of him and Hikaru in their debut ad campaign, and a third document: before and after photos of him marked up by the plastic surgeon to indicate what exactly would be changed and how. That done, he found took out a contact case, removed his colored lenses, and pushed back his bangs to better demonstrate a half-centimeter of lighter outgrowth.

"As you can see, that's me," he said. "I assumed a new identity after high school."

Tamiko was silent for a little longer than than may have been expected even for a counselor.

"I… see," she said, looking from picture to picture, her expression a bit vacant.

"Now you might think - why is he doing this?" Kaoru continued, suddenly emboldened. Now that THAT hump had been cleared, this was starting to feel almost fun. A part of him even felt cool doing it - like he was a James Bond sort coming out to a pretty female accomplice. "And one answer might seem obvious - I wanted to dissociate myself from my old life. I didn't want people to… assume things about me. Or to recognize me." He nodded slightly at the spread, which had been on many a billboard only two years ago. "But there's another reason, and that's where today comes in."

He reached into his pocket, took out his wallet, and placed his Todai student ID next to the other pieces of evidence.

"I didn't just change my appearance and my name. I actually assumed the identity of a completely different person. A person who existed for only a few days, technically, but still, another person - with different parents, and a different sex. On paper, anyway."

He pointed to two small characters at the bottom of the card - and Tamiko saw, for the first time, that it was the character for "female" that was circled.

This time, her mouth fell open farther than before, and he saw her eyes shoot like lightning to his face, then lower, where they ran aground against a thick turtleneck sweater.

"What… made you do that?" she asked, catching herself barely in the nick of time, her voice far more stoic than could have been expected under the circumstances - and a credit to the hat she wore.

"I did it for love." Kaoru half-shrugged. "We wanted to be together as proper husband and wife, but we couldn't do it legally. Not just because we're both men, but because he's my twin brother. In fact, that's him." He gestured at the magazine foldout, and flipped to the previous page in the yearbook. "Though the part about our relationship - you're just going to have to take my word for it. I don't imagine you want to see a whole lot of super-private text conversations."

Tamiko had given up all pretense of living up to the word on her hat, and was still staring blankly from the papers on the table to Kaoru, who could think of little more to do with his face than channel the remnants of James Bond swagger into a weak, tense smile. For a few moments, it was so silent he thought he could hear the sweep of the ceiling fan in an adjacent apartment.

"So you see now, why you can't tell anyone?" he said. "Though I guess now that you know," he chuckled, "You might find me thoroughly disgusting, in which case you're free to no longer be friends with me. I'd understand, if that's what you wanted."

She nodded, and beneath her smile he thought he could see something breaking. A few more sweeps of the faraway ceiling fan measured out the silence before Tamiko got up, removing her hat once more. She placed it carefully by the side of her cup and walked around the table, where she lowered herself by Kaoru's side and hugged him. She held him to her chest for a very long time, and when she pulled away and looked at his face, her eyes were wet.

"I'm really sorry, Tami-chan."

She shook her head.

"No, don't be sorry. I'M the one who should be sorry."

She looked down at the whorls in the table again, and it seemed like for a minute her eyes were absorbed entirely in following them.

"You - you have a beautiful heart. I can't imagine doing something like that for somebody."

"Yeah, you'd think that," Kaoru laughed, this time a little sadly. "But I'm beginning to think that maybe I didn't do it for him - I did it for me, except…"

Her knee had been touching his, and she had started slightly when she noticed it. She reached over to the other side of the table and put the Friend hat back on her head, topping off the gesture with an apple-cheeked attempt at a smile.

"Except?" she raised her eyebrows, folding her calves under herself.

"Except… I'm not so sure any more."

"Not sure?"

"Well, here's the thing, Tamiko" - it was Kaoru's turn to look down and bite his lip, pretending to take a keen interest in the printed pattern of the table. "I got to thinking, after you told me what you did, I… well, I - thought about you."

"You thought about… me?"

He still wasn't looking at her, but a note in her voice made him queasy again, and he was right back to the study room that morning.

"I did. I thought about what it might be like, for you and if I hadn't said no."

He looked up, and, sure enough, she was the rabbit before a snake again as well. Even her nose was twitching.

"The thing is, I could see it. I thought it would be very nice. And I can't help but think that that must mean something, because I've never SEEN anyone before, not like that. Well, maybe once, briefly, but that was before." He looked down again. "I don't know. I'm worried it means I'm wavering in my resolve."

He searched Tamiko's face for a hint of something - an echo of pain, or a shadow of struggle. 'Be kind,' he whispered to distract himself, 'For everyone you know is fighting a great battle.' But he saw nothing. At best, she was lifeless - almost more so than when she had been struggling to wrap her mind around what he had told her.

"Kaoru," she said at last, taking off her Friend hat and reaching for the one that said Counselor. "Can you tell me exactly what you thought?"

He sat a little farther back on his haunches as she straightened up to face him.

"I thought… Well, about us dating. The things we'd do and see - museums, flowers, ice cream sundaes. That kind of thing. I thought about meeting your parents, and graduating and… getting married. About the life we'd have. House, cars, jobs, kids. You know. The usual stuff."

"And how did that make you feel?"

"I don't know."

How DID it? As the ceiling fan measured out the time a wall away, Kaoru had been so focused on forming the words and imagining just what sorts of things they might have been stirring in Tamiko that he had quite forgotten to start reflecting on what he knew would be her next question - assuming she did not take off her hat. In the building across the way, another window flickered and went dark.

"I guess it felt… nice. Things would be simpler. There wouldn't be anything to hide."

She waited for him to say more, looking at him with her soft Mona Lisa smile and her eyes warm and brown like two cozy cups of tea. She removed her hat again.

"I hope this isn't too presumptuous of me…." She paused to tuck a thread of curls behind her ear. Her hair did not have its usual wave like that of a doll behind glass, but there was something new and defenselessly soft about it. "And this is really hard for me to say. But… I don't really think you thought about ME. You thought about the idea of me, and the story everyone must've written in their heads about us. The cute, cookie-cutter ever-after - you know? Except, I have a feeling you want more than that."

"Oh. How do you figure?"

She smiled and cocked her head. "I know you. Even though you've been pretending to be somebody else. A disguise is still a self-portrait." Kaoru thought he must have looked skeptical, because she sighed. "I can't really explain it, but you're not like everyone else. No matter how much you try to blend in. You're clearly very brave, you've got a goal that you're would go to great lengths for. But it's also as if you have the presence and power of more than one person - if that makes any sense. As if someone who's very far away still walks beside you. When I thought you were Hitachi, I thought it was your parents. But now that I know what I know, it makes even more sense."

Kaoru smiled, and she saw his eyes soften by the yellow light of the room.

"That still doesn't explain why I WANT more, though." He sighed. "Or even if I do… I'm just worried that a part of me doubts that it's worth it."

The tea had grown lukewarm, but she reached for the kettle and emptied the last of it into their cups.

"I think I know what you're saying," she said slowly, focusing on where his clavicles must have been for fear of running into his face.

She let her eyes wander over the photographs, in particular the one of the two beautiful boys, identical except for the direction they parted their hair. They were seated facing in opposite directions, their heads at slightly different levels, and the one she was almost convinced was Kaoru wore a fur-lined vest that showed off his collar bones and a long, bare neck. Although Kaoru had fixed his nose, chin and cheekbones, she hardly needed the surgeon's notes to recognize him. Indeed, she could remember seeing the ad campaign before, and when she had first met him, she could have sworn he reminded her of someone, but she could not place who and had eventually forgotten about it.

She wanted to dislike the boys for what they were, and, more importantly, for what it all meant for her. Especially the one she was almost sure was other one, and had a slightly devilish spark in his eye like the world was his oyster. But she found it hard to do. Something about the positions of their bodies suggested that they knew the other was there - knew it without having to look, even as their fingers almost touched behind their backs. Were she a slightly less luminous person, it might have made her jealous. But as the case was, it only made her sad, and not for herself.

"Your brother… what's his name again?"

"Hikaru."

"Right, Hikaru." 'Bright light' - how fitting. People named Hikaru never had any problems. People named Hikaru were the people everyone wanted to be.

"I think," she said tentatively, "I might know how to figure out what it is you're really having doubts about."

"Oh?"

"Well," she said tentatively, casting her eyes to the side and biting her lip. "What if you were to imagine that Hikaru was out of the picture? Imagine you come home one day, and he's not there. Everyone and everything else is there, and maybe the TV's on as, and you smell dinner being made, but Hikaru is nowhere to be seen, and all his stuff is gone. As if he never existed."

"Okay." Kaoru chuckled at Tamiko's take on what coming home every day felt like. "You're going to have to give me more context, though. Where has he gone? Is he even alive. Or did he just randomly take off one day?"

She pondered for a moment.

"No, it's nothing like that. I mean, this might be hard to imagine, but… let's pretend he's alive, but he's just gone somewhere far away and he's never coming back, and you can never find him or be in touch with him. No… better yet - let's say you found out that Hikaru was just a figment of your imagination, or an alien who had to go back to his home planet…"

"Geez, Tamiko, this is one complicated thought experiment..."

She sighed.

"Yeah… I guess. But I what I mean is, let's say you could somehow avoid all the hard feelings and nastiness that comes with a breakup. Or… let's say you experience it all, but you get through it quickly. Like if someone waved a magic wand and it was all condensed into five of the worst minutes in your life, but once it was over it was over. What would happen then?"

"I… don't know. I literally don't know what I'd do in such a situation."

"But would you feel relieved?"

"No."

"How would you feel?"

Kaoru gave it a few moments' thought. Try as he might, he still could not imagine it. Not Hikaru as an alien being, or imaginary, or simply gone. No matter how many magicians were to come and help him, it was impossible. It was like pressing a key on a piano and finding it made no sound. Like a silent spring, or a forest without birds. Or a great flood.

"Empty," he said. "I would feel empty."

Tamiko raised the cup to her lips and took a sip, but the tea was all gone.

"Then I don't think you should throw it all away because of day-to-day difficulties." She paused, hesitated, and put the cup down, almost apologetically. "Honestly, if that's the case, I feel like it's not that you don't love him. It's just that you feel… I don't know, is fragmented the right word? And that makes sense. Anyone would, in your shoes."

Kaoru looked back at her in wonder. It was definitely true what they said. In the mouths of babes… And yet, her birthday was March of the previous year, which technically made her more than a year older than him, despite being a foot shorter.

"How did you get so perceptive, Tamiko-senpai?" He allowed himself a laugh. "I've been beating around the bush for months, and you just come out and say it."

Tamiko gave a self-satisfied chuckle that showed off her cheeks and rose, taking up the kettle.

"Tell me, Kaoru-kohai, what do you really feel like?" She paused on the doorstep leading to the hall. "It seems at home you're one thing, at school you're another, and on paper you're well, a third. But nowhere do you really belong to yourself. And once again, that makes sense, because - you know the old saying about how everyone's got three faces? There's the face you show to the world, the face you show to those closest to you - for you, that would be at home to Hikaru - and the face you only show to yourself. Do you have a third face? What's it look like?" She smiled over her shoulder, plump and pigeon-like in her nightgown. "Give it a think, I'll be right back."

…

But before Tamiko had come back with the kettle refilled, Kaoru's phone rang. It was Yuzuha.

"Look, I don't know where you are - and I don't want to know" - she barked in lieu of greeting – "The two of you can hash that out between yourselves. But you'd better get home right now. Fly, sprout wings, I don't care. Just get here."

When Tamiko returned, Kaoru was gathering his things into his backpack.

"I'm sorry," he said sheepishly, glancing at the phone he had left the table. "I've gotta go, Tami-chan. I've got a… family thing."

"Oh, okay."

She put down the kettle and folded her hands, her cheeks bright and pink as raspberries. They exchanged a knowing glance as he packed away the last of the evidence, and she sat down opposite, pulling the stack of unused paper and the pen toward her. She was scribbling something when he looked up, and, her work done, she slid a folded piece of paper across the table.

"Here, this is for you," she said.

He opened the sheet and smiled.

"Prescription," it read. "For Kaoru Hitachi(in). One life that is yours. - Dr. T. Inoue."

_[I apologize to anyone who minds that Hikaru is not in this chapter except as a clothing ad. Don't worry, he'll be back. :)]_


	8. Guilty

When Hikaru had slipped into sleep, it did not really feel like it. Rather, when he finished with Kaoru's help and the latter wrapped his arms around him, nuzzling into the angle between his neck and jaw, his body began to feel like it was sinking into downy pillows. And when his breath slowed, Kaoru shifted atop him and started to kiss him, his hand on his cheek, and his thumb just brushing his chin in a way that made the rawness in his chest turn into a sweet, tugging pain. It was the same way he had held Kaoru's chin so many times - and yet he had no notion of the gesture's power. If his body did not already feel as heavy as could be, it would have made him whimper, "take me... I'm all yours. Till the end of the world."

The kisses were very tender, his brother's tongue barely probing inside. His only goal seemed to be to leave a bit of himself on Hikaru's mouth, and in truth, no more was needed. It already felt like Kaoru was all around him - as if he was no longer arms and legs and lips and chest, but a cloud that enveloped and shielded him from the world.

Both in the public eye and out of it, Hikaru had always been the protective father figure. But at the same time, no one made him feel more emotionally safe than Kaoru. His brother was the best listener, and, small though he was, he had the unique ability to create an aura akin to a large, overstuffed arm-chair. And yet, Kaoru himself had never wanted to reveal all of himself - in any way. At first, it had driven Hikaru distracted, and he wanted to press Kaoru against a wall and extort whatever he was hiding by any means necessary. But now it only made him sad, as if he had failed in the one thing that gave his life meaning. It wasn't even the fact that Kaoru did not want to share all of his body. That alone he would have been able to handle. But more than that, day in and day out Hikaru lived in fear that he had fucked up his chance to do for his brother what Kaoru had done for him. Because far more than being clever, good-looking, or good in bed, the most important thing in a relationship - he now realized - was to establish a place of emotional safety for the other person. If you messed that up, nothing else mattered. And yet, being young, with a head more full of hormones than brain, he had forced his brother to fight against borderline rape and emotional blackmail almost nightly, thinking all was fair in love and war. And while he did not let on, when he finally understood he was the reason Kaoru had been hurting himself, it broke him irreversibly.

Still, even if his choice had not fallen on his brother, he was still the sort of man who loved ardently, and loved once in a lifetime. If he had lived in another century, he would have either gotten killed in a duel by age 20, or plunged half a continent into war so he could lay the world at his lover's feet.

But as the case was, he had nothing left to do but vow to spend the rest of his life making it up to him, even if he never saw a thing in return. And so he almost never touched Kaoru first any more, and let him take the lead between the sheets. But still, a man could dream. And so he did, and once the lead of fatigue began to fall away, he let his hand travel up his brother's back, strong yet slender, then into his hair, soft and fine and getting longer, and then back down again as he gently pushed on his chest gently and lay him down, switching positions. In dreams, there was no pain and no fear, and no apprehension of seeing either in Kaoru's face. In dreams, Kaoru welcomed him into a tight embrace as the older twin came to lay on top of him, and when he reached down to spread his legs he drew soothing circles on Hikaru's chest with his palm, his skin smelling of cinnamon. And in dreams, Hikaru flesh would ender Kaoru's gently, and Kaoru would shift his hips up to meet him, and he would feel a small sigh on his lips as Kaoru's fingers pressed into his back.

"HIKARU HITACHIIN!" A gavel fell with the clatter of a thousand bricks. "For raping your brother, I hereby sentence you to ten years without parole… And if you don't mind me saying," the judge added in a lower, though still a grave tone, "That's incest AND sodomy AND rape. You should to be ashamed of yourself."

Hikaru woke with a violent surge of blood to his head. The room was silent, except for the whirr and trickle of seconds on the old clock. His fists were balled into the sheets, and his knees and feet were digging into the mattress, but all he had been having sex with was a bed. He scrambled up and looked wildly around. Kaoru was nowhere to be seen. Hikaru's chest began to ride up and down, and he realized - a pulse of fear ripping through him - that he could not have made it collapse if he tried.

Okay, calm down. Kaoru's probably just gone to the bathroom. He'll be back. Hikaru threw the sheets over his legs and pulled his knees up to his chin. He tried to wait. But the cutting feeling in his chest only grew worse and crept to his shoulders and throat, and before long each inflow of air felt like swallowing a dozen knives. The dunes of shadow around him grew darker, and the clock sputtered and whirred as it slowly dawned on him that Kaoru was NOT in the bathroom - in fact, there was no crack of light under the door, and no sounds from behind it. Just the violent knell of his heart echoing into the corners and slamming him in the temples with every stroke.

Hikaru threw aside the covers and got up, but the first time he tried his legs nearly gave way under him. He steadied himself against the foot of the bed. Thank goodness - his head felt light, so maybe it would not be so hard to support himself. His chest and lungs still seemed to have a mind of their own, and seemed like they were about to burst. It took all he had just to master his breath and his thoughts together with it.

Kaoru… Kaoru… Where are you, Kaoru? You wouldn't leave me - not like this. Even if you're sneaky sometimes and you hide things. You wouldn't. I know you wouldn't. People do, but not my Kaoru…

Or would he?

Kaoru flashed before his eyes, ever the delicate, sweet bishounen who turned both male and female heads wherever he went even with his new, more generic coloring - yet remained comically unaware of the fact. Kaoru was laughing in the middle of a sun-lit hallway, his head half-turned to glance at someone behind him, calling out for him to catch up.

No. No. You asshat. How could you even think such a thing - ?! Kaoru's definitely around here somewhere. Maybe he'd gone to have a midnight snack…

Wait. A midnight snack?! You mean, like the midnight snacks that used to devolve into worship at the porcelain throne, back when - ?!

Hikaru had almost sunk back on the bed, but was up like a shot, and out of the room in half a minute less than no time. Hang the fact that he was wearing nothing but boxers and a T-shirt. Before twenty minutes were up, he had busted down every bathroom door in the house - minus those in the servants' rooms. He had also thrown on the lights in the kitchen and scoured every corner of the pantry - to say nothing of the rest of the house when he found the kitchen deserted except for a maid and a butler kissing behind one of the counters.

"You… you two are NOT COMPATIBLE" - he spat after a few seconds of stabbing the air with his finger in their general direction. And before the dumbfounded duo could mutter their apologies, he was off.

He even poked his head into little Ageha's room, since Kaoru had a habit of coaxing her back to sleep if he was passing by and she had had a nightmare. But there was no Kaoru there, either - just a sleeping Aggie holding her rabbit in a death-grip and sucking her thumb. And Kaoru was not in Shar's room, either, though Hikaru did succeed in getting his mother's assistant to mutter something in her sleep - quite an accomplishment judging by the squadron of alcohol-laced cold medicine on her bedside table.

Hikaru shut the door and felt pins and needles coursing up his legs and arms. There was nowhere else to look, was there? Suddenly, he was back in the bed, a condemned man, shivering and stripped - a pulling void all around him. His whole body felt like the skin had been ripped off, and with every breath more and more of the atoms in the air turned to shards. Everything was severed, gone. Everything screamed, the panic rising around him like water. He saw walls, but could not remember where he was, or how he had gotten there. The one drive that remained was to flee, and his heart and lungs were quickly gathering revolutions. But he could not. One false step, and he would die, crushed by the mad force of gravity and the emptiness that had opened up around him.

Yes, he was going to die - he realized. There were no two ways about it. Or he would go crazy. His mind would be ripped from his body, nerve by nerve. Whichever came first. And, simpering and more terrified though he was - far more than ever in his life - as far as his silly heart and lungs were concerned, the rest of him felt so, impossibly heavy…

The soft-haired bishounen flashed before his eyes again, his head and torso half-turned, laughing in the sun-lit hallway. A dull pain nearly split his ribcage down the middle, and he doubled over. The image faded.

Hikaru collapsed against the wall, his strength gone.

…

Yuzuha was making her way down the hallway on tiptoes, her oversized purse slung over her shoulder. As always, she was set on checking on Ageha before retiring for a few hours' rest. The lights in the hallway were low - night lights just strong enough to guide one's way - so she did not see the shape huddled in a heap, holding on to the wall with splayed fingers like an anemic version of Spiderman, until she was a few feet away.

She squinted at the gray outline, and it looked like the hair was on the lighter side.

"Hikaru?"

The shape did not reply, but she heard it breathing, fast and shallow, and saw the chest twitch.

"Hikaru, what are you doing here?" She reached for the nearest light switch, and turned the hallway lights up a few degrees. Hikaru did not look like was about to move or get up, so she squatted beside him and put down her bag.

"What's going on, Hikaru?" she asked, as sternly is she could. She was still a little less than inclined to trust her older son, her kneejerk response being to screen any odd behavior for malingering or a hidden agenda. But in any case, direct was almost always better than touchy-feely.

"K - Kaoru."

"Kaoru? What about Kaoru?"

Hikaru's face was buried in the crook of his elbow, and he still hung on to the wall for dear life, fingernails digging into the paper. His breaths had turned to wheezes and then to rasps, and then it began to sound like he was gagging as if his throat was liquefying.

"I - can't - find him," he finally strained. "I woke up - and he wasn't there. He's not - anywhere."

"He's not anywhere? Have you tried calling him?"

Yuzuha was in the loop - she had always known that her sons shared a bed long past an age when sibling cosleeping was the norm**, but at first she had merely chalked it up to teenage experimentation. And when the twins advanced their scheme, she had been taken aback - though at least half of her bewilderment was due to the fact that she did not expect that level of maturity. Still, when it came to morality, Yuzuha was the ultimate consequentialist, and believed that the key to getting things done was a happy home life, no matter what sort of family one chose to have. And being in an "understanding" with her otherwise beloved husband, she certainly could not stand to call the kettle black. So in the end, she had been the one to help them with their plan, and after a few months she had even come to accept it. So when she heard that Hikaru could not find Kaoru on Valentine's night of all nights, she was at a loss as to what to think, though not in the way one might have expected.

(**cosleeping between non-spouse family members in Japan - i.e. siblings and parents and children - is not uncommon, and is seen as a sign of closeness but not necessarily sexual intimacy. Originally, however, the practice was normalized due to space constrains - a problem Hikaru and Kaoru definitely don't have.)

"N - no," Hikaru whimpered.

"Well, Geez-Louise, why not? I'd think that would be the first order of business."

"B - because he might not pick up…"

Yuzuha paused, heading off a half-peeved chuckle.

"Well, then you call him again until he does pick up."

Hikaru did not reply, burrowing his face deeper into his folded arms, and Yuzuha saw his shoulders shake under his T-shirt.

"Do you want ME to call him?" She pulled her bag toward her and fished out her phone. Kaoru picked up after the second ring, and Yuzuha covered the mouthpiece.

"See, he picked up," she threw emphatically at Hikaru, her air that of a mother none-too-happy to be woken for closet-dwelling monster patrol.

"Kaoru" - she took her hand off the mouthpiece - "Look, I don't know where you are, and I don't want to know," she barked into the phone. "The two of you can hash that out between yourselves. But you'd better get home right now. Fly, sprout wings, I don't care. Just get here."

"What's going on?" Kaoru asked - though something in his voice gave the inkling that he knew.

"I don't know. Your brother is having some sort of nervous breakdown."

"Oh, no - what's he doing?"

"Hyperventilating, not making much sense. I found him sitting on the floor in the hall - I don't know how long he's been there. He says he woke up and couldn't find you."

"Ok, I'm on my way."

"When can you be here?"

"Twenty minutes? Fifteen if Tanaguchi speeds."

"Alright," Yuzuha allowed herself a small, half-audible sigh. "Oh, and Kaoru?"

"Yes?"

"Is... there anything I should do?"

"Oh…" Kaoru seemed to ponder for a split second. "Just… stay with him until I get there. You can try to bring him some of the stuff he likes - like that really old Totoro plush, and there's a playlist on his computer called 'happYness' - with a Y. And maybe some Tako chips**. We have a stash hidden in the purple pouf by the table with the elephant vase. The top just comes off."

(**chips shaped and flavored like octopus)

Yuzuha nodded and clicked off. Without noticing, she had wrapped the tassels of her phone so tightly around her fingers they were now sore. She glanced a few times between its cover and her son's huddled shape. He was still facing away from her, but had raised his eyes and was staring at the wall. His breath still echoed with a wheeze, and he was shaking all over.

"Hikaru," she began, hesitatingly. "Kaoru's okay. He says he'll be here soon."

A spasm seized Hikaru's shoulders.

"What else can I do to help?"

Once again, Hikaru did not answer. Only his airways and diaphragm did - with a hollow choke.

Yuzuha sighed, and lowered herself onto her knees - until then, she had been perched uncomfortably on the balls of her feet. And then she did something she had not done in years. She hugged her son.

…

Kaoru came flying down the hall in seventeen minutes and forty seconds flat, and slid into home next to Hikaru and Yuzuha, seizing his brother by the hands.

"Hikaru! I'm so, so, so, so sorry…"

"Al-right then," said Yuzuha, pressing her lips and letting go of Hikaru as she got up and brushed invisible dust from her knees. For the last fifteen-odd minutes, she had indeed held Hikaru almost continuously, almost as tightly as he hugged his Totoro plush, and had even come to cradle his head as she tried to get him to breathe out. But the spell had most definitely broken.

"Hikaru… Oh, Hikaru…" Kaoru ignored his mother, and just as Hikaru's face began to break so hard it looked like it would split down the middle, he wrapped his arms around his older brother so tightly it could not help but slow the latter's breathing. Hikaru looked so small and sad, like a foal with a broken back. It make Kaoru want to… Well, no, he did not want to think about what it made him want to do, so he squeezed Hikaru all the tighter.

"Kaoru" - Yuzuha's voice broke the silence from above. "Is he going to be alright? Should we do anything else?"

Hikaru's wheezing was starting to slow, and his muscles were no longer trembling. Instead, his body had turned to slush, and melted summarily over Kaoru's chest.

"Hikaru?" Kaoru tried to catch his eyes, but his brother's head fell forward, and he placed a hand under his chest to support him. "I don't think he had a full-on nervous breakdown. I think he'll be fine - but you might have to find someone to fill his shoes for a couple of days. And we might need some valerian root, too."

Yuzuha appraised Hikaru, who had gone limp against Kaoru's torso and buried his face in his button-down, whimpering like a child.

"One day." She said drily. "Do whatever you need to do to get him back on his feet. I don't want him collapsing on me."

She began to walk away, when Kaoru's voice arrested her mid-step.

"You could stand to be a little kinder, mom."

She paused just shy of a turn in the hall.

"He's not a bad kid," Kaoru said. "He works really hard. You could let him know that once in a while." Kaoru was hugging his brother, and looked far more the tender Madonna than she ever had, his features as delicate in the mossy light as the outline of his hand on his brother's temple.

Yuzuha looked at them both and blinked her eyes.

"Oh, I know," she said, pressing a finger to her chin. "But keep in mind, there are many factors at play here." The lamps were set barely above twilight, but Kaoru saw her eyes move a good distance upwards.

"Alright, three days then," he said, trying to infuse his voice with just enough self-important opacity to mirror hers. "Clearly, we need more than one day to work through ALL the contributing factors."

"Hm. And why should I give YOU three days?"

"Well, you always go easy on me, and I'm the one who's asking."

"That's because you already make things harder for yourself than they need to be." She gave a low laugh. "There's nothing left for me to do - unless you want to take his place."

"I would, if it came to that."

He stroked his brother's hair as he watched his mother's shape melt into the hall.

…

"Hikaru, I'm so sorry. I knew you were in a bad place - I shouldn't have left you. There was an issue with a friend from school, but still, I should have been here."

They were back in their room, and Hikaru had not let go of Kaoru once as they made their way there, the older twin draped clumsily over the younger's shoulders. Once they were back in bed, Hikaru put his head in Kaoru's lap, and the latter was stroking it. A half-empty water glass and a brown bottle of valerian extract stood on the bedside table, and Hikaru had pulled his knees up to his chest, cradling the Totoro and pressing his chin between its ears. His ribcage still shook, and it seemed like every inch of his skin had been scalded. Weak though he seemed, he shivered and recoiled a bit every time Kaoru touched him, even though the younger twin had fetched a second blanket.

"Am I gonna die, Kaoru?" he whispered.

"Huh?" Kaoru's hand paused over the hair, reddish-gold in the cat-eye yellow of lamp light. Hikaru's face was hidden against the Totoro.

"I felt like I was going to die."

If before Kaoru had not known what kept his gut from turning inside out with guilt and remorse, at that moment it ceased to matter - the defense failed him irrevocably.

"No, you're not going to die." Kaoru heard his own voice from far away. His hand continued its progress. "I think you had a panic attack. That means your nervous system bailed and started sending fight or flight signals even though you weren't in any danger."

"Will it come back?"

"I don't think so. It only tends to come back if you have a condition, so I don't see a reason why it should."

"But what if it does? What if I have a condition?"

"Well, if that's the case, we'll know what to expect and we'll be ready. And I will never be very far from now on, alright?"

Hikaru fell silent, and for a few minutes Kaoru heard nothing but the click of the clock gears and the soft whistle of air.

"What if I keep having them?"

"Then we'll take you to a real doctor - not just me," Kaoru replied with a smile. "And I will go with you if you want."

"And what'll they do?"

"It depends. They might give you pills to take. And you might have to go in and talk to someone once a week. Sort of like at Hazeltown."

"W-will I have to go to a hospital like Hazeltown? Are they going to lock me up?"

"No, they really shouldn't. You're over 18, so you can only be committed unless you're set on hurting yourself or others. Or if you REALLY can't take care of yourself. But you have to be pretty far gone - you have to be wandering around Rippongi naked, pulling trees out of flower beds or something."

Hikaru turned and buried his face in Kaoru's lap, and his hand tightened over his brother's.


End file.
